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takyon writes:

AMD Is Gearing up To Acquire Xilinx (XLNX) for $30 Billion

AMD, a major player in the semiconductor sphere, is gearing up to acquire Xilinx for $30 billion, thereby, providing an impetus to the ongoing consolidation wave in the industry.

According to the sources quoted by [The] Wall Street Journal, AMD and Xilinx are currently in an advanced stage of negotiation, with a potential deal emerging as early as next week.

Bear in mind that Xilinx manufactures programmable chips for wireless networks and its acquisition will provide AMD a solid foothold in an industry that is currently in flux. With carriers injecting billions of dollars in the telecommunication sphere in order to expand the coverage of the next-gen 5G wireless network, Xilinx has become an important node in this endeavor.

However, the deal may be rejected:

The details of the deal revealed yesterday suggest that AMD is interested in paying up to $20 billion for acquiring Xilinx. This marks a roughly 20% premium over the acquisition target's closing share price yesterday. Xilinx is responsible for manufacturing communications and processing products, and it specializes in semiconductors dubbed as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). These differ from application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs, such as a microprocessor) by allowing use-customization after manufacturing.

Following the revelation, analysts from Citi Group, Wedbush, Citigroup and CNBC have pitched in their opinions about the affair. The majority of the analysts are skeptical of the deal's outcome as they either believe that no synergies exist between AMD and Xilinx, or that Xilinx management will likely reject the deal.

The Radeon designer's primary objective behind the move is likely to be the intention of competing with Intel Corporation in the FPGA sector. Due to the nature of FPGAs, they are often found in a large array of tech products. Such products cover applications such as neural networks, aerospace, automotive, finance, data centers and wireless and wired communications.

Also at Phoronix.

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