Friday, November 1st 2024
Apple and Samsung in the Fray to Acquire Intel: Rumor
Apple and Samsung are reportedly in the fray to acquire Intel, according a spectacular rumor cited by Moore's Law is Dead. This would put the list of companies looking to acquire Intel at 3—Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm. All three are Arm licensees, with unique characteristics. Apple currently has an Arm-based SoC hardware division that makes custom chips for all its devices, including Macs. Samsung would go on to be an overseas parent company for an American heritage company like Intel, but something like this is not unheard of when you consider examples such as Boston Dynamics being acquired by Hyundai Motors, or Westinghouse Nuclear's acquisition by Japan's Toshiba, before changing hands to Canadian Bookfield Partners. Then there's Qualcomm—the American company is having a bit of a falling out with Arm, and the prospect of owning the x86 IP should be tempting.
Intel retains large amounts of market-share in both the PC processor and server processor markets, however, the company's stock price has been on a downward trend for several quarters now, causing its valuation to drop to levels where any of the other big tech companies can afford to buy it out. The company spent close to $10 billion on a GPU architecture project spanning not just a contemporary graphics architecture to power the integrated graphics solutions of its PC processors, but also discrete gaming GPUs; and most importantly, an AI GPU architecture under the "Ponte Vecchio" project. Intel's Xe-HP AI GPU missed its performance targets or was too late to the market, leaving Intel with a gaping hole that it could only fill with a slew of cost-cutting measures. It doesn't help that Intel Foundry is losing its edge, and none of the logic tiles of Core Ultra "Arrow Lake" processor is made on an Intel foundry node.
Sources:
Moore's Law is Dead (YouTube), Tom's Guide
Intel retains large amounts of market-share in both the PC processor and server processor markets, however, the company's stock price has been on a downward trend for several quarters now, causing its valuation to drop to levels where any of the other big tech companies can afford to buy it out. The company spent close to $10 billion on a GPU architecture project spanning not just a contemporary graphics architecture to power the integrated graphics solutions of its PC processors, but also discrete gaming GPUs; and most importantly, an AI GPU architecture under the "Ponte Vecchio" project. Intel's Xe-HP AI GPU missed its performance targets or was too late to the market, leaving Intel with a gaping hole that it could only fill with a slew of cost-cutting measures. It doesn't help that Intel Foundry is losing its edge, and none of the logic tiles of Core Ultra "Arrow Lake" processor is made on an Intel foundry node.
123 Comments on Apple and Samsung in the Fray to Acquire Intel: Rumor
I heard Musk was going to buy it. ;)
There are just many examples of American companies of strategic value being bought out by foreign entities.
From throwing $50~60 billion on dividends & a few tens(?) of billions subsiding mobile chips to this, Intel's been an effin joke for at least a decade now!
There are far more subtleties to the idea of Intel being bought(by anyone). It just not going to happen without totally destroying the company itself.
So I'm going to go back to my original statement: This is a rumor and only a rumor.
And yes, I understand how mouthwatering Intel (especially their patents) would be to China, but I would fully expect a competent US gov would block such a sale.
It’s interesting how the buying of Intel stirs such passions. From Lex insulting the hell out of us for even mentioning it to that other guy questioning the reputation of TPU.
But none of it matters. All publicly traded companies are up for sale and as someone who works for a company that just lost an acquisition due to a bidding war, the intentions to buy a company can be extreme and not always apparent if its a good idea at first. Time always tells
I mean, if the fabs were that attractive, Apple would just pay Intel now to get a 2nd option for chip production.
Samsung already has problems getting their new fabs up to speed vs TSMC, buying another uncompetitive set of fabs from Intel does not help their financial situation. And that's after you get past the whole overly simplistic "foreign company buying a US company is bad" attitude from both political parties.
Has anyone actually asked Intel if they are selling? all this is speculation. As i said, imo Intel will not be sold.
What I fear, is Arc becoming "the next Voodoo"! Like when Nvidia killed 3DFX!
The 2020-21 chip shortage really brought the strategic importance of chip manufacturing to the government's attention.