Report: Intel Could Face Acquisition, Units to Remain Together

[3valatzy]

Will not watch the video but I would assume it's not actually impossible but it would require a whole bunch of new agreements involving AMD (and VIA?).

I am 100% sure that AMD has NO interest to allow Intel to be sold. Ever.

That is complete FUD. No license terms can make a publicly traded company not be able to sell itself. It’s already sellable by the very definition of publicly traded. Also no one would buy stock in any company that is magically (not a thing by the way) unable to ever be sold.

 

[kondamin]

weird Just wrote it's probably warren buffet that's taking intel private but it's not showing up.

 

[eidairaman1]

Man o man have the mighty fallen.

 

[Sound_Card]

I am 100% sure that AMD has NO interest to allow Intel to be sold. Ever.





View attachment 380410

Nobody is going to buy Intel for x86. They will buy them to access their IP, packaging technology, expertise, trade secrets, corporate contracts, graphics, software, R/D, and most importantly - their fabs. Those fabs alone will grant you tens of billions of national defense funding and put you in a position to single-handedly challenge TSMC's virtual monopoly with the right investment.

 

[TechLurker]

Given the complexity of the x86-64 cross-licensing agreement between AMD and Intel, Intel could sell their half of the IP to AMD with the regulatory bodies putting the condition that AMD would have to make the now combined x86-64 IP available to others via new licenses, so in theory, NVIDIA and whoever else wants to do custom x86-64 chips.

Then the rest of Intel would be bought up for their other IP, fabs, and talent by whoever else.

That said, while it may not happen, it would be hilarious and interesting if AMD did buy Intel. Then they could run 3-4 teams competing on processor improvements, and combine Altera with Xilinx to further improve their FPGA portfolio further. Then the much-needed manpower from Intel's GPU team can be added to AMD's to improve both the drivers and speed up GPU R&D. The real money pit would be the Fabs; AMD got rid of theirs for that reason, but if the Fabs are part of the package, AMD could theoretically utilize them to continue producing chips designed for IoT that Intel was already doing, and then test porting some of their designs to the Fabs. On the other hand, millions and billions of government contracts.

 

[qlum]

I would mostly rule out Nvidia to buy Intel as a whole. They could but the foundry business at most, but I see no way they would be allowed to buy the rest.

Broadcom makes the most sens in my mind, they probably could be allowed for the most part.

Or just large financial investors

 

[AusWolf]

Qualcomm tried and failed not too long ago (due to antitrust concerns), so whoever this mysterious buyer is, good luck!

 

[Dr. Dro]

It depends on what 'outright buy' means. Does it mean cash on hand or just simply using stock? Both Amazon and Google have over $80B cash on hand but the following tech companies have market caps high enough to buy Intel for under $100B:

Apple
Nvidia
Microsoft
Google
Amazon
Facebook
Tesla
Broadcom
TSMC
Oracle
Samsung
Cisco
IBM
AMD

Apple, debatable, Intel does have many nice patents but their interest on x86 has been all but entirely superseded. IBM, Broadcom and Qualcomm would also have a similar interest in Intel.
Nvidia would likely be interested, also because of patents, but also because they want to enter the CPU market. Sadly, any such deal would spell the end of Intel Arc graphics, though.
Microsoft might be interested, due to the whole Wintel deal and their profitable cloud business. Amazon, Google, Cisco and Oracle would also slot in the same vein here.
TSMC's interest in Intel would be primarily due to its foundry business, I see them interested in acquiring Intel Foundry Services, but not the other businesses. Same would apply to Samsung.
AMD is very unlikely to be able to conclude any deal, anti-trust would shoot it down as fast as possible as they would have an universal monopoly on x86. However, they might be interested in IFS to have their own fabs and maximize output for their profitable server business.
Not sure about Tesla or even any other of Elon Musk's businesses, X, XAI, Boring Company, Neuralink, etc. none of these would have any need for Intel's IP or infrastructure

So reducing to actual prospective buyers, I'd be placing Qcom, Nvidia and Apple for the IP portion, AMD, TSMC and Samsung for the foundry services and the cloud companies as prospective buyers for the company as a whole. The government may turn out to be quite protective of Intel IP and scrutiny for the transfer of technology would be quite high, however.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

Only these three can manage Intel as a whole. But time will tell, I guess

Managing Intel as a whole is not anything anyone wants to do, not even Intel itself. It's a failing model. Whoever acquires them will definitely streamline and get rid of divisions.

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

Well....

Elon Musk Reportedly Emerges As a Potential Intel Buyer, Involving Qualcomm & Global Foundries In This Blockbuster Deal

It's a wild rumor, but Elon Musk could play a part in Intel's acquisition, as the report by SemiAnalysis has mentioned him as a buyer.

wccftech.com

 

[freeagent]

Well....

Elon Musk Reportedly Emerges As a Potential Intel Buyer, Involving Qualcomm & Global Foundries In This Blockbuster Deal

It's a wild rumor, but Elon Musk could play a part in Intel's acquisition, as the report by SemiAnalysis has mentioned him as a buyer.

wccftech.com

I am not going to click the link yet, because I want to install a different cooler, but I am not surprised to see his name lol.

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

I am not going to click the link yet, because I want to install a different cooler, but I am not surprised to see his name lol.

Firefox+uBlock=Stock cooler safe.

 

[ZoneDymo]

You forgot the obvious one: AMD


Absolutely sure there's no such rule or law in place to stop them!

BlackRock+Vanguard can probably buy half the US if they sell most of their assets

what do you mean? why do you think Nvidia could not buy ARM?

 

[user556]

Intel's strength has always been the PC. AMD is the sole reason Intel is struggling. If AMD hadn't decided to outsource its fabrication then Intel would still be sitting pretty, irrespective of its node progress. Although, it would be under pressure to explain why the PC industry was getting so far behind cellphones.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Intel's strength has always been the PC. AMD is the sole reason Intel is struggling. If AMD hadn't decided to outsource its fabrication then Intel would still be sitting pretty, irrespective of its node progress. Although, it would be under pressure to explain why the PC industry was getting so far behind cellphones.

Actually, if you recall the origin of Atom and the 'mont cores, it was so Intel could enter the ultra mobile market. They were putting all the tools in place to make a mobile SOC, but what debuted was a terrible product. Battery life was bad, performance wasn't great, it ran hot. With the death of Itanic before it, it was a pretty solid indicator of how much Intel depended on its success in desktop/workstation/server x86, as they've really struggled to enter any other market, much less overtake one. Even their GPU efforts are mediocre at best. Alchemist was really late and a disappointment, and while Battlemage isn't a bad product, it's a $259 card that hasn't even caused a price adjustment from AMD and NVIDIA. The high-end BM card is not even production ready.

In hind site, Intel has been treading water for at least 5 years, doing everything they can to make their process perform. That ended with Arrow Lake, or maybe even Raptor Lake. All of a sudden, Intel is out of answers to the competition.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

The x86 license is not transferable, such an acquisition is impossible and will not happen.

License?

Intel OWNS x86!

You are confusing AMD and VIA with intel. Whomever buys intel buys x86.

Intel's strength has always been the PC. AMD is the sole reason Intel is struggling. If AMD hadn't decided to outsource its fabrication then Intel would still be sitting pretty, irrespective of its node progress. Although, it would be under pressure to explain why the PC industry was getting so far behind cellphones.

Not the PC, but servers. Xeons made bonkers bucks compared to the consumer space.

AMD's greatest achievement has not ben the Ryzen CPUs, rather, its been the success of Threadripper and Epyc. Not only have they taken juicy marketshare, but they've forced intel to slash prices to remain competitive, which is eating their margins alive. I remember when AMD hit 3% of the server market and the comapny's revenue DOUBLED.

Without that free flowing money Intel simply cant remain competitive if they hit a rough patch with fabs, which they did half a decade ago and still have not recovered.

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

Intel OWNS x86!

And AMD owns x64 and licensed to Intel.

x86-64 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Dr. Dro]

And AMD owns x64 and licensed to Intel.

x86-64 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

It is noteworthy that AMD64 extensions (and Intel's licensed equivalent, marketed as EM64T) cannot/will not work without the x86 base set. Should either party break the fabled agreement in any manner... do you really think that either company would stop manufacturing CPUs? They're going to overlook it all to an absolute extreme, since an injunction would be filed faster than you can read this post, and the extent of the threat to the American economy that either party would cause would probably result in one of the wildest (and equally expensive) legal cases in history.

*With physical address extensions, you have about 64 GB of addressing space, which would still serve most types of systems today.

 

[Wirko]

License?

Intel OWNS x86!

And x86 is evaporating before their collective eyes. I mean, the basic 64-bit patents have long expired, SSE2 expired recently or is about to, SSE3 will expire soon. What remains is SSE4 and newer ISA extensions. Although it's basically impossible to find reliable sources.

 

[Dr. Dro]

And x86 is evaporating before their collective eyes. I mean, the basic 64-bit patents have long expired, SSE2 expired recently or is about to, SSE3 will expire soon. What remains is SSE4 and newer ISA extensions. Although it's basically impossible to find reliable sources.

The problem is that x86 patenting is a minefield, and each and every extension is covered through a different set of patents. Besides, US7499962, which is the patent for the fused multiply-add operation instruction, won't expire until 2026 and it's an absolute essential for modern operating systems. The patents for the full instruction set required to make an AMD Clawhammer-compatible processor (original socket 754 Athlon64 from 2003) still have not completely expired.

 

[Noci]

maybe in the near future some old semi-blond dude wearing a red baseball cap with the text: Make Intel great again, changing the game .

Besides IP, major national security reasons, (in)dependance of foreign tech, economical interests and that kind of stuff.
Whatever will happen with Intel, these things will have significant impact on the outcome.

 

[Wirko]

The problem is that x86 patenting is a minefield, and each and every extension is covered through a different set of patents. Besides, US7499962, which is the patent for the fused multiply-add operation instruction, won't expire until 2026 and it's an absolute essential for modern operating systems. The patents for the full instruction set required to make an AMD Clawhammer-compatible processor (original socket 754 Athlon64 from 2003) still have not completely expired.

Yes, but 2026 is near. Hence the formation of the x86 advisory group - because Intel and AMD want to find ways to still make money on their IP after that.

What the Intel-AMD x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group is, and What it's Not

AVX-512 was proposed by Intel more than a decade ago—in 2013 to be precise. A decade later, the implementation of this instruction set on CPU cores remains wildly spotty—Intel implemented it first on an HPC accelerator, then its Xeon server processors, then its client processors, before...

www.techpowerup.com

Whom do Intel and AMD fear? It's not the processor designers that could copy the ISA and make a processor running modern Windows. Not realistically. It's Apple and MS and maybe some other company, who may one day develop seriously well-performing x86 emulators on ARM processors.

 

[Caring1]

If I had to speculate, there are only a few companies that can acquire Intel: Broadcom and NVIDIA.

Softbank?

 

[Scattergrunt]

Well....

Elon Musk Reportedly Emerges As a Potential Intel Buyer, Involving Qualcomm & Global Foundries In This Blockbuster Deal

It's a wild rumor, but Elon Musk could play a part in Intel's acquisition, as the report by SemiAnalysis has mentioned him as a buyer.

wccftech.com

Why cant this guy stay out of things he doesn't belong in? Good lord..

 

[user556]

Not the PC, but servers. Xeons made bonkers bucks compared to the consumer space.

AMD's greatest achievement has not ben the Ryzen CPUs, rather, its been the success of Threadripper and Epyc. Not only have they taken juicy marketshare, but they've forced intel to slash prices to remain competitive, which is eating their margins alive. I remember when AMD hit 3% of the server market and the comapny's revenue DOUBLED.

Without that free flowing money Intel simply cant remain competitive if they hit a rough patch with fabs, which they did half a decade ago and still have not recovered.

I don't make the distinction. It's all the same PC hardware, aka x86.