NEW YORK — Chip maker Broadcom Corp. (BRCM.O) on Monday took another step in its aggressive growth plan, buying privately-held NewPort Communications Inc. for $1.28 billion in stock as part of an expansion into the fast-growing fiber optics communications business.

The deal is the latest in a wave of acquisitions for Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom, which wants to be a one-stop-shopping equipment and chip supplier to link computers, telephones and televisions over high-speed networks.

Shares of Broadcom were up 8-15/16 to 234 near midday on the Nasdaq stock market following news of the deal.

Broadcom said it would issue about 5.5 million Class A common shares in exchange for all of NewPort's preferred and common stock, employee stock options, warrants and other rights. NewPort is also based in Irvine.

NewPort supplies high-speed communications chips for the optical networking industry to enable the telecommunications industry to support emerging bandwidth demands of multi-server digital voice, data and video services.

"The acquisition of NewPort Communications ... is not only synergistic with our 10-gigabit ethernet technology but is also complementary to the communications processor technology that we are acquiring through our merger with Silicon Spice Inc.,'' Broadcom President and Chief Executive Henry Nicholas said in a statement. "Together, these acquisitions will provide Broadcom with a powerful platform to address the rapidly growing wide area networking marketplace.''

"It's a fast-growing area and it looks like a pretty good acquisition,'' said John Geraghty of Gerard Klauer Mattison.

In connection with the deal, Broadcom said it will record a