** Shares of British semiconductor company Alphawave IP Group AWE.L down 1.7% at 135.3p

** Jefferies upgrades AWE to "Buy" from "Hold", citing a potential bid from Qualcomm QCOM.O as a key driver for the upgrade

** Brokerage raises PT to 160p from 108p, representing a nearly 17% upside to the stock's last close

** U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm said on Tuesday it is considering making an offer to acquire Alphawave, which designs and licenses semiconductor technology for data centers, networking, and storage

** Jefferies says, "We believe such a bid is likely, as the acquisition would provide Qualcomm with an entry into the data center segment through both Networking chips and custom ASIC solutions"

** Stock rated "Buy" on avg; median PT is 162.5p, per data compiled by LSEG

** Stock up ~63% so far this year

(Reporting by Kanchana Chakravarty in Bengaluru)

((Kanchana.Chakravarty@thomsonreuters.com))