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Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel

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Re: Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel

#31

Post by mewse-hn »

qwytw wrote: post #28
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #16

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.

> 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?

> 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

Re: Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel

#32

Post by packetlost »

qwytw wrote: post #28
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #16

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.

> 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?

> What did they really design besides the Snapdragon X Elite in the last 10+ years?

Lots of 5G modems

Re: Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel

#34

Post by klyrs »

Narhem wrote: post #12

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.

A... single patent? No, there are licensing agreements for that.

Re: Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel

#35

Post by qwytw »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #5
electronbeam wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would motivate this

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.

> 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.

Re: Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel

#36

Post by kev009 »

geerlingguy wrote: post #10

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/…

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.

Re: Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel

#37

Post by mlyle »

shortsunblack wrote: post #26
mlyle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel

#38

Post by Narhem »

MattGrommes wrote: post #24

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.

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.

Re: Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel

#39

Post by kev009 »

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.

Re: Qualcomm Wants to Buy Intel

#40

Post by freehorse »

wmf wrote: post #30
geerlingguy wrote: post #10

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/…

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.

How can you expect your products to have good software support by developers then?
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