Microchip Technology threatened on Wednesday to nominate its own candidates to the board of directors of Atmel after Atmel rebuffed its $2.23bn offer, launching yet another hostile battle in a sector that has seen a spike in unsolicited takeover activity.

Sixteen unfriendly takeover bids have been launched for technology companies this year, according to Dealogic – including Microsoft’s $47bn bid to buy Yahoo. But those efforts have yielded a miserable success rate.