When we first came across Conexant it was closing in on WiFi and broadband chips in around 2004, but it then came up against Broadcom WiFi pricing, which put it into a tailspin, and resulted in it going private under Golden Gate Capital in 2011. In 2013 the company entered Chapter XI and now it seems to have emerged so successfully on the back of mixed signal chips which offer voice control, especially to the highly popular smart speakers market, led by Alexa, that it has been acquired just a few weeks back for $300 million. This week that voice control leadership led it to the AI department at Baidu and opened up the colossal Chinese market for Conexant, which…