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Consolidation in the chip-making industry continues apace as Qualcomm discusses a possible merger with NXP Semiconductors:
Qualcomm is in discussions to buy NXP Semiconductors in what would be another act of consolidation in the chip-making industry, a person briefed on the matter said on Thursday. If completed, a deal could be valued at more than $30 billion, given NXP's market value of roughly $28 billion as of Wednesday's market close. Talks were continuing and could still fall apart.
A union of Qualcomm and NXP would be the latest in an industry that has recently experienced big mergers. Earlier this year, SoftBank of Japan struck a takeover deal for ARM Holdings, a British chip designer, for $32 billion. Last year, Avago Technologies bought Broadcom for $37 billion, while Intel paid nearly $17 billion for Altera.
Also at TechCrunch, Reuters, Bloomberg, and Ars Technica .
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday October 01 2016, @10:13PM
Plus, reducing competition through merging: is this not supposed to be a bad thing???
Let's see: fewer employers means take this job at this wage or starve... it means buy this crap at this price or do without...
Why are these mergers being approved? Because the people with money decree it?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 01 2016, @10:48PM
Merging saves money, it doesn't acquire talent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:19PM
Qualcomm isn't academia or even a startup. They're not in the innovation business. They're in the market-share and IP holding business. They don't want talent. They want code monkeys capable of reading specs from the startups they bought to churn out working bits & silicone.
If you want innovation, start here: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327633&page_number=2 [eetimes.com]
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:22PM
Breast implants used to be made from silicone. Chips are made from silicon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @01:30AM
Technically, since silicon doesn't exist in nature, you start with silicone and break it down to silicon.
+1 silicone anal suppository
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday October 02 2016, @02:23AM
Not really. Semiconductor-grade silicon is sometimes made from silane (SiH4) which, a bit confusingly, is also called silicane. Silicones are polymeric and contain oxygen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silane [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicone [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:12PM
qcoms real problem is cost and patents. Their chips are more expensive than most of their competition even though they own a good chunk of the patents to make the stuff. The patents actually worth anything are basically 'going away' or already have.
They *need* to be in IoT as the high end cell phone market is getting pretty close to saturation. Yet 3 other companies are cheaper and better positioned for that market. The few people they have that actually understand how that market works are not working on it. They want to sell 1500 dollar units when the market is demanding 15-30 dollar units. Most IoT does not need 50mb connections; a low end GSM data connection is fine, and does not cost 50+ bucks (ie an a high cost high power LTE chipset). They are also busy trying to create ARM server racks. Which are niche and would only be used by a small number of players. Interesting to be sure but not enough to move the needle on a company that size.
They also have had many initiatives over the years to re-invent other things. They were not executed very well and ended up as large cost boondoggles.
At this point their only way to grow is to acquire. NXP makes sense as I said they need to be in IoT and they are one of the major suppliers for parts for that.