Intel Reported To Be Looking At Acquiring GlobalFoundries

[Brane215]

OMFG this is funny. Intel's once-legendary process nodes are so shit they're actually thinking about buying up the barrel-bottom that is GloFo.

WTF are you on about ? GloFo is not bottom player. They just aren't going to the cutting edge. Their 12/14 processes are very decent and they are making a fair buck on htier segments.

[sdack]

I wonder how people compare such an acquisition by Intel with Nvidia wanting to acquire Arm. Do people have similar concerns as to how it might affect other businesses?

[Paradigm Shifter]

I don't think the regulators give two shits about anything currently. The amount of "vertical integration" is staggering these days. This image explains it pretty well.

Hence my mention of multi-national corporations, to whom laws seem to be almost optional, or re-written at their beck and call, which is basically the same thing.

[CochainComplex]

I don't think the regulators give two shits about anything currently. The amount of "vertical integration" is staggering these days. This image explains it pretty well.

why finally flanders is cool ?

[cb88]

Well one big advantage of Intel is that they have their own fabs. I was a long time fan of AMD, but I was quite disappointed when they split away from their fab. Now days we're way to dependent on Taiwan for chips. Just look a the chip shortage we're dealing with now. And Taiwan is in an unstable situation with China, so that creates the potential for things to get much uglier.

It's a liability... if your node fails you fail.

AMD go rid of thier fabs to be more agile... also the disvested of thier fab they didn't split from them at all in fact they still buy a buttload of silicon from GF.

Also AMD isnt' dependant on any one fab... they use what is fastest, if that was Samsug they'd use them, if it was GF they'd use them... in this case it is TSMC, and thier fab flexiblity has allowed them to acutally spread the burden of manufacturing various silicon dies across more than one company... every Ryzen desktop CPU is made at 2 fabs minimum one for the IO die and one for the cores.

Intel buying Global Foundries would be an anti competitive measure against AMD one of GFs biggest customers.

[smitty3268]

This strikes me as a way for Intel to simply purchase a customer list, given their new plans to offer their own fabs to clients.

They can spend the next few years talking to everyone who uses GloFo about how much better their chips would be if they moved over to Intel's own fabs. Otherwise I think it'll be a lot tougher sell for them to get any clients of their own.

[arQon]

So they can't make a good product so they're just trying to buy everyone out instead?
Yeah, that always works out so well.

It does if you've got the money to do it - and Intel does.

The important part is that they DON'T have the money to buy TSMC (and to buy off all the politicians needed globally to let a deal like that go through), so it basically "doesn't matter" for at least another 4-5 years anyway.

[NateHubbard]

It kind of strikes me like when Sears bought Kmart here in the U.S.. But I hope this is blocked.

Well, I guess the old name change was successful, as you seem to think it was Sears that bought Kmart.

[bobm4567]

It kind of strikes me like when Sears bought Kmart here in the U.S.. But I hope this is blocked.

[Teggs]

What the...? Intel needs to be snapped back hard and immediately. They were already needing to be legally banned from booking space at competing fabs, simply buying out the capacity AMD and Nvidia, and to some extent Apple need to compete with them. Now they want to purchase competing fabs outright? Hell no. We need Global Foundries to get off their butt and compete again as a player in the industry, even if they remain one or two nodes behind, instead of giving up and fading, and the market and its customers need the fabs to be independent instead of further consolidated. I also see that Intel does not need a $50B investment from the US government for new fabs, since they have this kind of cash to use on anticompetitive moves.

Also, Gelsinger has been at Intel long enough to demonstrate what kind of leader he wants to be, and all he has shown is the same kind of underhanded garbage Intel has engaged in since the 80s. Switching marketing pukes for an engineer at the top has not improved their attitude towards the rest of the world one bit.

How about instead of Intel buying Global Foundries, governments sever Intel's product development and fabrication components completely? That would seem to be much more helpful.