Broadcom to buy network gear maker Brocade for $5.5 billion

(Reuters) – Chipmaker Broadcom said it would buy Brocade Communications Systems for $5.5 billion, pushing deeper into the fast-growing market for network equipment used in data centers.
The deal, the latest in a consolidating chip sector, will allow Broadcom to corner a larger share of the data center products market by using Brocade’s fiber channel switches that speed up data transfer between servers and storage devices.
Singapore-based Broadcom, formerly Avago Technologies, is know