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[peish]

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.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/qualcomm-has-explored-acquiring-pieces-intel-chip-design-business-sources-say-2024-09-06/

 

[DenchDeckard]

End of an era. WTF.

 

[Hero_Select]

How the mighty have fallen

 

[Fabieter]

Questionable if qualcomm should be allowed to do it.

 

[M1chl]

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

 

[Agent_4Seven]

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.

 

[kikkis]

I guess parts of it are possible, but there is hardly enough dough for anything major.

 

[TVexperto]

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

why?

 

[peish]

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.

 

[M1chl]

why?

As far as I know Intel x86_32 instruction set is owned and controlled by intel and x86_64 is controlled by AMD, thus they would only get the 32bit portion, if they would to acquire part of Intel. But that could by bullshit, my memory from the years when I read about all of this is pretty bad.

 

[Nikodemos]

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.

 

[Von Hugh]

Leonidas in shambles

 

[winjer]

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.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

This is bad. And I am and AMD user since Ryzen 2600x.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Damn. This could really send shockwaves through the industry.

 

[Rentahamster]

200 years in the future, the fable will be called, "The Tortoise and the Intel".

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

200 years in the future, the fable will be called, "The Tortoise and the Intel".

No one will know what a tortoise is by then

 

[winjer]

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.

 

[Nikodemos]

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).

 

[Insane Metal]

Holy crap. 2024 keeps getting more and more insane

 

[OverHeat]

 

[RoboFu]

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.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Questionable if qualcomm should be allowed to do it.

They won't be, not with chip wars heating up.

 

[Quixz]

14nm+++++++++++++ hurt them eventually.

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

 

[winjer]

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.

 

[Loomy]

Questionable if qualcomm should be allowed to do it.

I'd be surprised if they are. At the very least the US government is going to put up the fight of their lives on this one.

 

[StereoVsn]

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.

 

[SHA]

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

Arm brainwashing X86, it's simple.

 

[finalflame]

Intel's downfall will be taught to business students in the future. Amazing how a company's leadership can squander such immense potential.

 

[diffusionx]

Intel is treating the business they built up over 50 years like a junkie getting ready to go to the pawn shop.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

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.