SiliconBeat

The valley’s base of public companies is set to shrink a bit more with the news today that Exar of Fremont, a maker of silicon electronic connection devices, has agreed to buy Hifn, the Los Gatos supplier of chips used to secure and compress data over networks and on storage systems.

Exar will give Hifn shareholders a chance to choose between 0.3529 shares of Exar common stock and $1.60 in cash for each Hifn share owned, $4 in cash for each. Hifn Chief Executive Al Sisto will lose his job, but join Exar’s board of directors.

In note to his own employees prior to an “all hands meeting” at 3 p.m. in the Exar cafeteria , CEO Pete Rodriguez, said that “because of the requirement to retain our independent company status until the close of the acquisition, we cannot discuss or finalize a variety of items.”

Like, maybe, who among you will be losing jobs in the process, you mean?

“We know the best approach for each of us is to remain focused on our commitments,” Rodriguez advised, who will be keeping his own.

Hifn shares, which closed Monday at $2.39, were bid up $1.40, or 59 percent in after hours trading, to $3.80, according to Yahoo Finance.