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Rumor : Qualcomm to buy over Intel Core business

peish

Member
Lisa Su won.

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Qualcomm (QCOM.O), opens new tab has explored the possibility of acquiring portions of Intel's (INTC.O), opens new tab design business to boost the company's product portfolio, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The mobile chipmaker has examined acquiring different pieces of Intel, which is struggling to generate cash and looking to shed business units and sell off other assets, the people said.
Intel’s client PC design business is of significant interest to Qualcomm executives, one of the sources said, but they are looking at all of the company’s design units.

Other pieces of Intel such as the server segment would make less sense for Qualcomm to acquire, another source with knowledge of Qualcomm's operations said.
Qualcomm has not approached Intel about a potential acquisition and declined to comment on its plans, an Intel spokesperson said. Intel is "deeply committed to our PC business," the spokesperson said.
Qualcomm declined to comment.

The $184 billion Qualcomm, which is known for chips found in smartphones and counts Apple as a customer, has been working on plans to buy pieces of Intel for months.

 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
How does this works with x86 licence, which is suppose to be from some point in history non transferable to other companies?
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
If it'll go well, it can be potentially bad for CPU prices since AMD can turn into NVIDIA and charge insane prices with no competition. I doubt that Qualcomm can turn things around for intel stuff quickly.
 

peish

Member
arm licensing is getting too expensive. I guess qualcomm may as well be king of x86. Lunar lake proves you can make low powered devices with x86

Windows OS probably sucks too much battery still.
 

Nikodemos

Member
If it'll go well, it can be potentially bad for CPU prices since AMD can turn into NVIDIA and charge insane prices with no competition. I doubt that Qualcomm can turn things around for intel stuff quickly.
Given that AMD has a pretty solid gig selling ULV chips for high-end gaming handhelds, I don't think they'd want to choke that arm of their business.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Just last month, Intel sold the shares it had on ARM, to help it's own finances.
So it's very likely that Intel would want to sell more assets to stay afloat.
I doubt Intel would sell it's X86 business, as this is the central core of Intel.
But they have a ton of IP they can sell. And they could also license X86 to more companies.

And the worst part, is that Intel is about to release a fully new generation of CPUs, and it has to buy chips from TSMC for most of it, while cancelling 20A process node, while still having to finance the development of of 18A.
 

winjer

Gold Member
How does this works with x86 licence, which is suppose to be from some point in history non transferable to other companies?

X86 was supposed to be a one off CPU architecture, but then it became a huge hit, than no one expected. Not even Intel.
At the time, there were many architectures fighting to become the standard for the Personal Computer.
But when IBM picked it to be their CPU of choice for the IBM PC, that is when Intel struck gold.
At the time, IBM was many times larger than Intel. And IBM new that if Intel was the only supplier of CPUs, Intel could have a huge leverage.
So IBM forced Intel to license X86 and provide CPU schematics to several companies. Like AMD, Cyrix, etc.
At the time, AMD was only a foundry, they did not design chips. Which is curious, because now AMD has no foundries and only designs chips.
This is a very important point, because the X86 license was stated that these companies had to have a foundry and make their own chips.
But then, several companies reversed engineered the IBM PC bios and started making clones. And suddenly, IBM lost its power over the X86 PC market.
Intel could not go back and cancel the X86 agreements. But they managed to not give any more chip schematics to any company.
So companies like AMD and Cyrix had to develop their own X86 CPUs. But while doing that, they also created a lot of IP.
When AMD sued Intel in the early 2000's, and won. They "only" got 1Billion in cash, but AMD also got a lot concessions regarding it's licensing.
One of those concessions was that AMD could get rid of it's foundry business and retain it's X86 license. The other was an extension for a few more decades, for the X86 license. And the sharing of a ton of IP between the two companies.
 
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Nikodemos

Member
Yep, the '86' part of x86 dates back to the 8086 chip, which was but one flavor of 16-bit CPU among many at the time.
Intel straight-up told AMD and Cyrix that the 486 is going to be the last chip they hand out schematics for, which led to the latter two designing their own flavors of ersatz-Pentium.
Cyrix ultimately foundered, due to sticking too closely to entry-level pricing (leading to very poor performance compared to Pentiums), but AMD managed to create something closer in capability, while still cheaper. And then they kept evolving down their own separate path, ultimately leading to x64 (originally called amd64).
 
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OverHeat

« generous god »
eBaNxvL.jpeg
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
Actually a lot of people are expecting intel to bounce back. The stock dive was due to investor panic because of their foundry business issues. There could be a lot of people buying intel for cheap soon if intel just makes a few announcements like they have about their foundry business changes.
 

Quixz

Member
14nm+++++++++++++ hurt them eventually. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

They'll be back once everything is ironed but would have never imagined Intel to get themselves into so much trouble.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Actually a lot of people are expecting intel to bounce back. The stock dive was due to investor panic because of their foundry business issues. There could be a lot of people buying intel for cheap soon if intel just makes a few announcements like they have about their foundry business changes.

Arrow lake and Battlemage might also help to regain some trust and help Intel stocks claw back some value.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
If it'll go well, it can be potentially bad for CPU prices since AMD can turn into NVIDIA and charge insane prices with no competition. I doubt that Qualcomm can turn things around for intel stuff quickly.
This is more for PC design, it’s not for CPU/Chipset side.
 

finalflame

Banned
Intel's downfall will be taught to business students in the future. Amazing how a company's leadership can squander such immense potential.
 
I suspect it might be blocked by the regulators but Qualcomm is pushing quite heavily right now because it has the potential to become a major player in PC market. With Nvidia basically owning GPU market and the sunset of x86 gives them a strong opening with ARM.

Actually a lot of people are expecting intel to bounce back. The stock dive was due to investor panic because of their foundry business issues. There could be a lot of people buying intel for cheap soon if intel just makes a few announcements like they have about their foundry business changes.
Intel has a lot of potential for sure.
 
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peish

Member
Oh shit, it is happening!

Tech

Intel shares pop on report Qualcomm has approached it about takeover​

Published Fri, Sep 20 20243:26 PM EDTUpdated 4 Min Ago

Qualcomm approached Intel about a takeover in recent days, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Intel shares rose 8% on the report.


The deal, if it were to happen, would be one of the largest technology mergers in years. Intel has a market cap around $96 billion.

It would cap off a dire stretch for Intel. The company’s stock had its biggest one-day drop in over 50 years in August after the firm reported disappointing earnings. Intel stock is down 53% in 2024 as investors express doubts about its costly plans to manufacture and design chips.

Qualcomm and Intel compete in several markets, including for PC and laptop chips.

Representatives for Qualcomm and Intel didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.
 

winjer

Gold Member

According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to Bloomberg, Qualcomm has decided to wait until after the election before deciding its next move. Such a massive deal would undoubtedly face intense scrutiny from regulators, both domestic and globally. The company wants to see how the next administration's policies affect factors that could impact the acquisition, such as antitrust rules and US-China relations.
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Qualcomm Inc.’s interest in pursuing an acquisition of Intel Corp. has cooled, according to people familiar with the matter, upending what would have likely been one of the largest technology deals of all time.

The complexities associated with acquiring all of Intel has made a deal less attractive to Qualcomm, said some of the people, asking not to be identified discussing confidential matters. It’s always possible Qualcomm looks at pieces of Intel instead or rekindles its interest later, they added.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Its so sad what is happening to Intel.

Self inflicted or not! we need strong competition.

How the mighty have fallen. Gone with my first ever personal AMD build with the 9800X3D. Still, my 14900KS is my main pc but this is just sad to see imo.

I hope they can turn it around, for the sake of PC gaming.
 
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