Here’s a sampling: Fairchild Semiconductor is up nearly 5 percent in after-market trading. Analog Devices is up a little more than 4 percent. Maxim Integrated Products, 5 percent. Linear Technology about 3 percent. On Semiconductor more than 5 percent. Intersil, 8 percent. STMicroelectronics, 3 percent. You get the idea: Investors are clearly hoping that another acquisition is soon to happen in the world of analog semiconductors.

TI was already the big gorilla in the analog business. It’s a $42 billion business and TI accounted for about $6 billion worth of analog sales in 2010, and the analog business amounted to 43 percent of TI’s business last year. With this acquisition it goes from being a chip company that supplies the microprocessors for most of the world’s wireless phones to a mostly analog company. A Gartner market ranking of analog chip makers ranked TI number one and National fourth. The combination makes TI an even bigger gorilla yet.

Who’s number 2? Analog Devices, ahead of Maxim and Linear Technology, who are numbers three and five respectively in the Gartner rankings. Further down the list you see names like STMicro, On Semi, Intersil and Fairchild.

So what’s so great about analog chips? They go into everything: From wireless phones to games to medical devices to military and industrial gear. They manage power; help convert light and sound into digital information; and measure temperature or pressure or any other quantity that occurs in the real world. And with all the digital gadgets we rely upon these days, we’re relying increasingly on analog chips of every stripe. Analog sales grew 37 percent last year, which was faster than the chip business as a whole, Gartner analyst Steve Ohr told me.

As is the case with TI and National, there’s bound to be a lot of overlap in products and customers among all these other companies. That suggests that more combinations are likely, though with valuations inflating on the speculation, any company thinking of making an acquisition would probably want to sit tight until the prices come down a little bit before making a move.

But the teardown that Wall Street and the investment community is waiting on is the one from the market research firm IHS iSuppli, whose team spent all day Saturday in a furious effort to dissemble a 32-gigabyte iPad 2 and estimate the cost that Apple paid for every component. They gave me an exclusive early look at their findings.

The point is to form a partial picture of the gross profit margin on every unit, a figure that Apple generally keeps to itself. This information is useful to investors and analysts who then factor the findings in with other assumptions they use to predict how much of a profit Apple is going to report over the next few quarters.

The headline of iSuppli’s teardown researcher is always the estimated bill-of-materials cost, which is the sum cost that it thinks Apple has paid for all the hardware inside the iPad 2. It doesn’t take into account the cost to develop software, or other things like packaging, shipping and distribution, or manufacturing.

In this case the estimates are for the 32-gigabyte, 3G version of the iPad which sells for $729, and there are two estimates, one for the AT&T version–$326.60, and one for the Verizon Wireless version–$323.35. Some of the wireless chips used in the AT&T version are a little more expensive or require an extra part. For example, on the Verizon version, GPS is integrated with the Qualcomm-made wireless baseband chip. On the AT&T version, an extra GPS chip had to be added along with the Broadcom-made Bluteooth and Wi-Fi chips, adding an extra cost of $1.50 per unit.

The baseband wireless chips were naturally different because AT&T and Verizon use different wireless technologies. Intel, the new owner of the former wireless chip division of Infineon, supplied the main wireless chip in the AT&T version, with supporting chips coming from TriQuint Semiconductor and Skyworks for a combined cost of $18.70.

Qualcomm supplied the main wireless chip Verizon version, with supporting chips coming from Skyworks, Avago Technologies, and Murata for a combined cost of $16.35. While there had been some speculation that Apple had used a Qualcomm chip in both versions, but it turned out not to be the case.

Aside from the wireless chips, the components are otherwise identical across both versions. Both sport Apple’s A5 chip, and iSuppli says that Samsung is still manufacturing it for Apple at a cost of $14. While there had been some talk in recent weeks that Apple was moving its chip manufacturing contract to Tawain Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp, there’s no evidence that it has made such a move, at least not yet.

The most expensive component by far is the touch-sensitive display, coming at $127. ISuppli says that the LCD portion the unit they tore apart was built by LG Display, but Apple is known to use other sources for displays, including Samsung, and possibly ChiMei Innolux. The glass assembly covering the display is thought to come from TPK or WinTek. ISuppli says costs on the display are going up because manufacturing yields on LCDs have been lower. Apple is also thought to be using a more expensive glue to improve the efficiency of the process of bonding a new thinner type of Gorilla glass to the display.

Samsung supplied Apple with the NAND flash memory used in the iSuppli sample, holding on to a relationship that goes back several years to the days of the first iPod nano, though Toshiba is also known to supply Apple with flash. It is the world biggest consumer of flash memory, after all. Elpida supplied the DRAM memory. ISuppli estimates the combined cost of memory, both flash and DRAM plus a Micron-made MCP memory chip at $65.70.

Then there’s a set of components seen in the iPad 1 that remained the same in the iPad 2. STMicroelectronics supplied the gyroscope and the accelerometer, and AKM Semiconductor supplied the electronic compass. Broadcom supplied touch interface chips, while Texas Instruments supplied a touch screen driver chip. Analog Devices supplied a capacitive touch controller.

Finally there are the two cameras. ISuppli hasn’t yet named the suppliers there, though the usual candidate is Aptina, the former camera unit of Micron, though it’s possible that Apple sources them from more than one place.

ISuppli’s estimates are a lot higher than the findings of another teardown shop, UBM Techinsights. The Wall Street Journal reported that UBM’s cost estimate is about $270, but that estimate was made before it conducted its actual teardown, and didn’t change once it had.

For Q4, the company posted revenue of $661 million and profits of 49 cents a share; that beat the Street consensus at $655.1 million and 44 cents.

However, Analog Devices also said that it expects revenues for its fiscal Q1 ending in January to be down 20 percent sequentially; that would imply revenue of $528.8 million, well below the Street at $600.5 million. The company sees profits for the quarter of 22-23 cents a share, sharply lower than the Street at 35 cents. ADI said that it expects gross margin for the January quarter of 57-58 percent, down from 61.1 percent in the latest quarter.

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Pajjuri notes that ADI is down nearly 30 percent since early June; he says the valuation now “mostly reflects our margin and growth concerns.” He notes that the stock trades at 12 times EV/FCF, a discount to other analog chip stocks. He points out that ADI boasts strong free cash flow and a three percent dividend yield, and that ADI has limited exposure to consumer and PC markets

As for AMD, Pajjuri says the change followed a review of his ratings following the call on ADI. “Although we have not changed our fundamental outlook for AMD, we believe it is relatively less attractive than other Neutral rated stocks in its cluster,” he writes.

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