The Financial Times in Germany has carried a report suggesting that senior executives at Infineon and NXP owner, private equity group KKR are talking about a merger between the two semiconductor firms.

This is the story which simply will not go away despite no confirmation that any talks have taken place and despite the fact that most industry watchers believe there is little merit in bringing Europe’s largest chip makers together.

Malcolm Penn, CEO of Europe's leading semiconductor analyst company, Future Horizons told EW last month: "The bottom line is there's no merit in it. Mergers only work if there's a true driving force between the companies involved. But in this case you'd get product overlap, corporate clashes and another classic merger disaster where 1 + 1 = half."

Last month, there were rumours of a merger proposal put up by Joseph Borel, described as a former executive vice president in central R&D at STMicroelectronics.

STMicroelectronics, which has previously been included in rumours about a super semiconductor merger in Europe, is not mentioned in today’s report.