Qualcomm Inc, a San Diego-based producer of microchips has announced its plans to buy Atheros Communications Inc, another producer of chips for Bluetooth wireless and global positioning system devices. Today, the company reported that it will pay $45 per share for Atheros, which is at 21.6 percent premium over Monday’s closing price.

The news of acquisition proved good for both companies, as  Atheros shares rose 69 cents to $44.69, and Qualcomm shares rose 43 cents to $51.40 in pre-market trading. With this deal, Craig Barratt, Atheros’ chief executive, is expected to become president of Qualcomm Networking and Connectivity. The deal will be closed by the end of the second quarter this year.

As the tablet computer market is expanding rapidly, the market for Bluetooth wireless and chips is also expected to swell up this year. Intel has been making some big strides in this area as well along with several other companies. For example, second generation chips from Intel are to become more widespread, heading to mobile devices very soon, with their Sandy Bridge combo chips making a splash at CES this year as well.

Marking another development, Qualcomm is also backing OoVoo, a video chat tool. They’ve recently announced this at CES 2011, taking place in Las Vegas right now. Both companies will be demonstrating ooVoo’s multi-party video chat app on upcoming dual-core Android phone running Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset. This is important for the company as video chatting concept is reaching a wider audience, working to make Android devices more competitive in the mobile space for high-end processing capabilities.