[HN Gopher] Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel
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Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel
Author : oco101
Score : 121 points
Date : 2024-09-20 20:57 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| melling wrote:
| Yeah, Intel is really cheap. It would be a steal.
| osnium123 wrote:
| China will block this deal from ever happening.
| electronbeam wrote:
| What would motivate this
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| What's bad for US semiconductor manufacturing (I.e. a poor
| and cash starved Intel) buys China more time to catch up to
| frontier fab tech. If Qualcomm buys Intel, the optimistic
| scenario (for the US) is a stronger domestic player.
| osnium123 wrote:
| Yes. This would also give more volume for the existing
| Intel factories.
| qwytw wrote:
| > stronger domestic player
|
| Is it though? Qualcomm is more likely to just strip Intel
| for parts than to turn it around and we'll just end up with
| more market concentration and less competition.
| electronbeam wrote:
| If that were true they'd denial-of-service every possible
| merger
| kube-system wrote:
| Geopolitically you can't ixnay everything, you've got to
| pick your battles.
| pwython wrote:
| "So, why is Qualcomm under so much pressure? China is one
| significant reason. China is one of their critical worldwide
| markets and both the US and China governments seem to be
| increasing pressure on various US companies, including Apple,
| Qualcomm and Google."
|
| https://www.rcrwireless.com/20230911/uncategorized/kagan-
| how...
| quantum_state wrote:
| From some perspective, governments of the big markets are
| like gangsters...
| ectospheno wrote:
| How exactly would a foreign power block two US companies from
| merging when it has no significant stock holding in either?
| osnium123 wrote:
| Chinese regulators have a say because both companies do
| business in China.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| Same way China blocked Intel from acquiring Tower
| Semiconductor.
| wahern wrote:
| TIL: https://www.reuters.com/technology/intel-walk-
| away-54-bln-ac...
| mlyle wrote:
| Same way Europe exercises outsized antitrust influence in the
| US: threatening to fine US entities, and if necessary deny
| them access to the European market.
|
| It would be tricky, though, because my sense is that China
| still needs Intel/Qualcomm more than they _need_ China. At
| the same time, it would be pretty deadly to be denied access
| to that market and your products subject to excess tariffs if
| imported by others.
| shortsunblack wrote:
| To the poster, Europe does not exercise outsized antitrust
| influence in the US. Many of these companies have their tax
| residency in the EU. There is no need to "deny" anything.
| If the company gets fined and it refuses to pay the fine,
| EU seizes the money in one of many bank accounts in Europe.
| mlyle wrote:
| Europe absolutely exercises significant antitrust
| influence upon US firms.
|
| In practice, yes, as you point out: US firms must have
| assets in Europe to compete effectively.
|
| But even if they didn't, Europe could deny access to the
| European market. So there is no reason to try and
| minimize surface in Europe. e.g. Apple has to comply with
| European antitrust rulings about app store access, even
| if Apple were to just sell their product to third party
| distributors in Europe and not have any presence in
| Europe.
| overstay8930 wrote:
| > Europe could deny access to the European market
|
| Not really, Apple would just get customers the same way
| they're sold in any other part of the world that doesn't
| officially have iPhones (i.e. Russia), the EU doesn't
| have the authority to seize shipments purely based on a
| violation of the DMA.
| ivewonyoung wrote:
| Like how UK blocked Microsoft's purchase of Blizzard.
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| Major markets like EU and China often do have a major
| influence on mergers even though the companies merging could
| be based in the US and most shareholding could be US.
|
| I think it goes like this: The major market regulator could
| say directly/indirectly: Hey you can merge in the US ... but
| good luck operating in our geography in a frictionless manner
| if we are against your merger. As a regulator we can make
| life hell for you if you don't obey our anticompetitive laws.
| Since you derive a high percentage of your revenue/profits
| you must listen to us !
|
| It all depends on the percentage of sales in the foreign
| geography. With EU/China it can be quite high -- especially
| for tech companies.
|
| So yes, foreign powers can and often do block companies from
| merging.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| And I think it ends like this:
|
| CEO to board: We want to acquire $LESSER_COMPANY, but China
| opposes. We can go through, but we'll lose easy access to
| that market, and our valuation will drop.
|
| Board: Forget it.
| jovial_cavalier wrote:
| >Is this how arm vs x86 ends?
|
| No... Intel isn't the only one that makes x86 processors and
| Qualcomm isn't the only one that makes arm.
|
| Separately, Intel should sell them the flagging chips business
| and keep the fledgling foundries business separate.
| qwytw wrote:
| > flagging chips business
|
| Is it "flagging", though? Intel still seems to be pretty good
| at designing chips and their next gen laptop chips (made at
| TSMC) are allegedly more power efficient than the Snapdragon
| Elite (of course remains to be seen). It's the foundry that's
| dragging down.
| zeusk wrote:
| If you look at the financial statements, it's quite the
| opposite however?
|
| Their chips made on TSMC process are doing quite well and IFS
| has failed to secure worthwhile external customers and is
| losing money in their expansion hand over first.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| IFS has just announced Amazon as a customer with a design on
| 18A. Microsoft is also expected to tape out one design.
| They're not going to challenge TSMC this decade, but becoming
| the #2 fab 2030 is achievable.
| 015a wrote:
| Wasn't there some clause in the Intel/AMD x86-64 cross-licensing
| deal which voids it if either company changes ownership? I have
| some recollection of that being a thing.
|
| But to be fair, Qualcomm might not care.
| electronbeam wrote:
| Deals can be amended for $$
|
| The idea is to keep the number of x86 suppliers low, but enough
| patents are expired already you could probably make an x86_64
| avx2 era cpu without asking
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Qualcomm still hasn't shipped any of the Snapdragon X dev kits,
| two months and counting. If they can't deliver on their promises
| (that and CoPilot PCs having very disappointing sales), how could
| they do anything besides further drag down Intel?
|
| Not only that, it sounds like a major customer (Apple) is close
| to finally ditching Qualcomm's wireless chips? (At least that's
| been rumored [1])
|
| [1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/07/24/apple-has-
| reporte...
| cowmix wrote:
| When this platform was heralded as the "AI" desktop, I pre-
| ordered both the dev kit and a laptop. Like many of you, I've
| experienced a months-long delay in the delivery of the dev
| kits. Although I STILL don't have my devkit, I received my
| laptop pretty much on time. -- and I quickly discovered that
| despite Windows on ARM (WOA) being over a decade old, the
| support for open-source tooling is as complete as Swiss cheese.
| Key Python modules are missing, and even the Git command-line
| (git bash) client isn't functional yet!
|
| I mean, forget about basic open-source development, let alone
| performing AI inference work on your new Snapdragon laptop.
|
| After some digging, I've learned that just four overworked
| developers in Prague make up the core team unclogging this
| tooling dependency log-jam. Gah!
|
| For what it's worth, WSL2 (Linux on Windows) actually runs
| quite impressively on the Snapdragon X.
| nine_k wrote:
| Why run Windows on ARM, when Linux on ARM is so.much more
| mature? Or are you buildings a Windows-specific product?
| wmf wrote:
| Companies should do what they say they're going to do, but
| these dev kits are an example of something that's relevant to
| HN but not to Qualcomm's business.
| freehorse wrote:
| How can you expect your products to have good software
| support by developers then?
| wmf wrote:
| Snapdragon laptops have been available for a few weeks
| already. Although laptops cost more than this dev kit
| they're also more usable as a daily driver. If Qualcomm
| wants real adoption they'd send them out for free, not
| require devs to pay.
| cowmix wrote:
| A large part of the success of this new platform is how fast
| devs can adapt / fix their apps to work natively. Apple, for
| instance, provided dev mules for OSX ARM --- and their
| rollout of Apple Silicon was smoother than anyone could have
| hoped.
|
| Windows ARM -- still borked in SOOO many ways -- and its 10+
| years old now.
| com2kid wrote:
| > Windows ARM -- still borked in SOOO many ways -- and its
| 10+ years old now.
|
| Internally, nearly 20 years. It was kept alive for a long
| time by a single individual as a side project. When I first
| got out of college I actually helped update tests that were
| being used for it (I maintained the ARM compiler test
| harness, and it was being used for some Windows on ARM
| stuff as well).
|
| Microsoft has never went fully in on arm, whereas Apple was
| willing to burn bridges and start brand new.
| kev009 wrote:
| Qualcomm's RF design is best in class. This is their bread and
| butter and they have been consistently good at it forever.
|
| Apple purchased intel's RF baseband division,which was awful,
| and has been working on it in secret for years. It remains to
| be seen how this will go for Apple. It is attractive to Apple
| for cost and efficiency reasons (theoretically they can bury
| this all on a single SoC if they wish to) not because Qualcomm
| is bad.
|
| It bears in mind that just because you are good at one thing
| does not imply you will be good at another. For instance,
| Intel's networking is mediocre to bad depending on the product
| or various entities trying to produce MIPS and ARM products
| failing time and time again.
| Narhem wrote:
| Is there a patent or something Qualcomm is trying to get from
| Intel? Seems like an odd acquisition otherwise.
|
| As far as chip manufacturing they target different markets, I'd
| bet most IP isn't transferable between the orgs anyway,
| especially since Apple bought Intels modem patents already.
| klyrs wrote:
| A... single patent? No, there are licensing agreements for
| that.
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| Intel has focused on manufacturing efficiency for years now.
| Their innovation abilities have been lacking. A combination of
| Qualcomm and Intel will be a powerhouse. Intel as an entity will
| disappear but Qualcomm will be the stronger for it. I doubt Intel
| will go for it but I hope it happens.
| qwytw wrote:
| > Their innovation abilities have been lacking
|
| And Qualcomm's haven't? What did they really design besides the
| Snapdragon X Elite in the last 10+ years?
|
| > but I hope it happens
|
| So more industry concentration and even less competition would
| somehow be a good thing?
| mewse-hn wrote:
| > What did they really design besides the Snapdragon X Elite
| in the last 10+ years?
|
| The Snapdragon 8 series have been the flagship SoCs for non-
| Apple phones for years, that's why people had high hopes for
| the Snapdragon X on PCs
| qwytw wrote:
| > The Snapdragon 8 series
|
| They "just" are just using standard ARM cores which is
| hardly comparable to what Intel and Apple are doing (and
| they have been lagging behind Apple by a few years since
| forever; arguably Intel is closer to the M series than
| Qualcomm is to A series).
|
| > Snapdragon X
|
| I thought it's because they finally designed their own
| core, since ARM has been completely ignoring the laptop
| market and couldn't really offer anything?
| silisili wrote:
| Snapdragons have mostly been reference ARM designs with
| Adreno bolted on being the big selling point, since it
| blows away Mali or whatever the reference design is today.
| They got that from AMD of all places, hence the name being
| an anagram of Radeon.
| packetlost wrote:
| > What did they really design besides the Snapdragon X Elite
| in the last 10+ years?
|
| Lots of 5G modems
| Wytwwww wrote:
| It's pretty easy to design the best 5G modems when you're
| are almost (effectively) the only company that's legally
| allowed to make them. They are basically a monopoly...
|
| Intel would be doing much better as well if they didn't
| have to share x86 with AMD and could sue ARM into
| oblivion...
| jprd wrote:
| I imagine Apple would disagree.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| Some more discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41604817
| MattGrommes wrote:
| Qualcomm consists of at least 4 lawyers for every engineer. If
| this happens expect a lot more lawsuits making anything involving
| hardware much more expensive for everybody.
| Narhem wrote:
| Qualcomm makes lots of their money by holding a monopoly on
| wireless chip patents. They use lawyers to bully other
| companies out of the space.
|
| You can compare this with the patent wars of the companies in
| Silicon Valley which came to halt when the orgs realized they
| were effectively giving money to lawyers instead of innovating.
|
| Qualcomm doesn't really have real competition in Southern
| California. It's cheaper for them to bully smaller companies
| with lawyers than employ more engineers (not sure if it's
| possible to employ more engineers in the wireless space
| regardless).
|
| You could also argue Qualcomms success is related to the other
| companies which reside around them. They have effectively built
| an "office moat" with their wireless patents.
| slt2021 wrote:
| so Qualcomm is basically Oracle?
| refulgentis wrote:
| No way, 4x?!
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| This would not be good for either party. And Qualcomm would only
| do this to kill x86 prematurely which I'm sure AMD will pick up
| on.
| gunalx wrote:
| I really don't see it. Maybe a merger of some sort but still. Has
| Qualcomm anything to gain from taking intel, and likewise intel
| from being merged in?
| lagadu wrote:
| They might just split and sell off the cpu and gpu divisions
| and keep the rest of Intel's (very wide) portfolio. Of
| particular interest might be the Intel foundries.
| kev009 wrote:
| The headline seems intentionally bombastic and false. The text
| specifies that they are interested in lines of business, for
| example consumer computing, not the entire entity.
| fidotron wrote:
| I wonder if Intel still have a suitable Arm architecture license
| that would be transferable? It seems unlikely without Arm
| approval, but a bundle could offset some of the cost Qualcomm
| might be thinking about, as that lawsuit might be getting too
| expensive, even for them.
|
| For context: https://www.reuters.com/technology/arm-qualcomm-
| legal-battle...
| GeekyBear wrote:
| After a decade of being assured that the short support window for
| Android devices had a root cause in the lack of support device
| makers received from Qualcomm, they are the last company that I
| want to see buy Intel.
| bfrog wrote:
| Meanwhile x86 has maintained backwards compat for (checks
| calendar) yeah decades. Literally decades. With standards up
| the wazoo to avoid the disaster that is the Arm ecosystem
| without UEFI or something like it.
|
| Every Arm SoC being a snowflake needing special attention by
| the OS is a huge hassle. There's a reason there's no simplified
| Arm installer for operating systems.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Historically this backwards compatibility was a competitive
| moat for intel - having a large supply of weird instructions
| with some undocumented behaviour thrown in makes it more
| expensive to make competing chips.
| loeg wrote:
| The ISA isn't what makes x86 easier for operating systems
| to support than ARM SoCs. It's things like generic ACPICA
| instead of hardcoded devicetrees.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Intel squandered its dominance on the CPU market for decades.
| Qalcomm sucking the remaining life of it would be a fitting end
| for a player that lost its way.
|
| Wonder if the increasing backwards compatibility became too
| much to bear, but IMO it never really tried to tread new
| grounds for risk of losing a comfortable position.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| A sale isn't going to happen. Intel has had a rough quarter but
| their lunar lake launch looks promising, beating Qualcomm's
| offerings on battery life and performance.
| ginko wrote:
| Qualcomm should be broken up.
| xmly wrote:
| good joke
| tippytippytango wrote:
| Apple, c'mon. Get in there and just buy intel. Get the foundry
| working, spin out x86 into its own legacy, fabless business unit.
| Make your own chips, it's only 100B!!
| dzonga wrote:
| selling intel to Qualcomm, would the equivalent of selling
| yourself to a vampire instead of selling blood.
|
| the reason Apple ended up making their own wireless chips is due
| to Qualcomm
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