SiliconBeat

Two of the nine directors on the board at Leadis Technology resigned Wednesday and, as a result, the remaining board voted to approve reducing the number of directors on the board to seven, according to a regulatory filing today.

That move effectively put the kabbash on any plans some of the company’s disgruntled shareholders might have gotten to nominate their own candidates to replace the departing board members.

Two institutional investors in particular — Dialectic Capital Management and Kettle Hill Capital Management — have been urging Leadis to lower its operating costs, sell off units and appoint one or two of their picks to its board.

Leadis has checked off at least one of those items. In January, it announced the sale of its display driver business for $3.5 million plus $500,000 in assumed liabilities, and last month the company said it reported selling off some of its development-stage intellectual property to a “publicly-traded supplier of analog and mixed-signal” semiconductors for $2.3 million. This week it reported completing the sale of certain assets relating to its portable audio IC business for $1.45 million.

The board resigners are Byron Bynum, a former Motorola executive who joined Leadis’s board in 2006 and served on its compensation committee, and I-Wei Wu, a founder of a flat-panel display company in Taiwan who joined the board a year ago and also served on its nominating and corporate governance committee.

“In light of the Company’s recent transactions involving the sale of assets related to its display driver, audio and power management businesses, the expertise provided by Mr. Bynum and Dr. Wu is no longer as relevant,” the company reported as a preface to its decision not to seek their replacement but shrink the board instead.