The federal probe into stock-options backdating claimed another target—semiconductor maker Broadcom Corp., which last year restated earnings to reflect $2 billion in unreported compensation expenses. That is the largest accounting restatement yet attributed to backdating.

Federal securities regulators charged the Irvine, California, company with falsifying income by backdating the stock-option grants over a five-year period. The chipmaker, which did not admit or deny wrongdoing, agreed to pay $12 million to settle the charges—a deal that must still pass a judge’s muster.

"The scope and magnitude of the fraud warrants the significant penalty imposed on the company," said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division.

The filing came the same day Broadcom announced that it bested its quarterly revenue targets and forecast continued growth in revenues. The company makes chips for mobile phones and network equipment.

Company spokesman Bill Blanning said that the settlement "is a major step in the process of closing this chapter" and that the company is focusing on its current and future business.

According to the complaint, Broadcom’s two-person options committee approved some 88 stock grants between 1998 and 2003. The dates they met did not always coincide with the dates the grants were approved.

Securities regulators said that the backdated options were used to recruit and retain executives in lieu of higher salaries. The options were also a means of avoiding reporting compensation expenses, leading to overstating company income by as much as 422 percent. Losses were also underreported by as much as 38 percent, and the disclosures misled shareholders.

Broadcom's co-founders are not yet off the hot seat because federal prosecutors are currently conducting a criminal investigation into the company’s backdating, and told a federal judge that founders Henry T. Nicholas III and Henry Samueli are "unindicted co-conspirators."

The company’s former human resources head, Nancy M. Tullos, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice last month, and settled with the S.E.C. for $1.4 million. She did not admit wrongdoing and is cooperating with the ongoing criminal investigation.