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Intel in talks to buy GlobalFoundries for about $30 billion:
July 15 (Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC.O) is in talks to buy semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries Inc for about $30 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Any deal talks don't appear to include GlobalFoundries directly, as a spokesperson for the company told the Journal it was not in discussions with Intel, according to the report. (https://on.wsj.com/3yXFQLU)
Talks come as a semiconductor shortage is hobbling industries around the globe. A deal could help Intel ramp up production of chips at a time demand is at its peak and the company is looking to start producing chips for car makers that have struggled to keep operations running due to severe shortages.
Intel, one of the last companies in the semiconductor industry that both designs and manufactures its own chips, said earlier this year it would expand its advanced chip manufacturing capacity by spending as much as $20 billion to invest in factories in the U.S.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday July 20 2021, @05:21PM (1 child)
I was wondering what microcontrollers Intel was offering and had a look at Arrow and Mouser. I found all sorts of weird shit, including the "D2000" Quark, which is an FPU-less, stripped down 586 variety, or legacy 8051 stuff, much of that even in stock, but everything listed as "discontinued"/"obsolete". At Mouser, "Intel" is not among the vendors offering microcontrollers at all, anymore.
The car manufacturers have finished designs and need specific chips, and from availability numbers we can guess that the STM32 line is a major player here. Somehow I can neither imagine that Intel is queueing behind CKS, Gigadevices, and WCH to offer their iARM32F103C8T6, nor that the car manufacturers have any need for a stripped down Pentium with blockchain-enabled-machine-learning accelerator (which is what the Intel marketing dimwits would likely come up with) at $29 in quantity.
So what can we expect from Intel in the near future, in the controller segment, and what could we expect if they buy GF?
Besides all that, any anti-trust agency worth a single letter of their name should shoot this takeover down. But won't, because this is about control of the global market in the end. Which is probably why the takeover is considered in the first place. Like they have $30bn cash in the bank, no reasonable path to turn these into products they can sell at the markups they are used to, and inflation looms.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 21 2021, @05:20PM
GlobalFoundries Chief Rejects Intel Deal Rumors, Stresses On Need For U.S. Chip Ecosystem [wccftech.com]
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