UK's competition watchdog sniffs around AMD's proposed $35bn all-stock buy of Xilinx
- Reference: 1620648906
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/10/amd_xilinx_buy_cma/
- Source link:
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) [2]today launched an enquiry inviting interested parties to provide written comments on the planned buy. The deadline for this phase 1 is scheduled for 6 July.
It said:
The CMA is considering whether it is or may be the case that this transaction, if carried into effect, will result in the creation of a relevant merger situation under the provisions of the Enterprise Act 2020, and if so, whether the creation of that situation may be expected to result, in a substantial lessening of competition without any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services.
The multi-billion stock buy of Xilinx, one of the major players in the FPGA market, was [3]confirmed by both outfits in October , and company execs high-fived each other at the start of April when [4]shareholder approval was granted .
AMD president and CEO Lisa Su, said at the time that Xilinx would bolster AMD's position in HPC. “By combining our world-class engineering team and deep domain expertise, we will create an industry leader with the vision, talent and scale to define the future of high performance computing.”
[5]
[6]
[7]
As The Reg pointed out before, AMD could pair up its x86 server processors with Xilinx’s FPGAs to packages of compute with customisable configuration acceleration added. AMD might also find good use for Xilinx with the [8]rise of DPUs and SMartNICs .
[9]Advanced Money-making Devices: AMD inks multibillion stock deal for FPGA specialist Xilinx
[10]Welp, it is the season for silicon mega-mergers... AMD rumored to be in advanced talks to buy FPGA slinger Xilinx for $30bn+
[11]What links AMD CPU guru Jim Keller, an AI chip upstart, and SiFive? This vector-crunching 64-bit RISC-V processor
[12]Xilinx pops a 16-core 64-bit Arm system-on-chip from NXP into its latest FPGA-based 100Gbps smart NIC
In addition, the programmable logic device-maker is a big dog in the infrastructure of cellular networks as its [13]Versal chips are used in telco kit made by Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei, though for [14]obvious reasons , the latter of those three is doing less business with it these days.
Xilinx's main rival is Altera, which was itself [15]consumed by Intel almost six years ago for $16.7bn , where is was digested into Chipzilla’s data centre division, where it has lived ever since.
The CMA will want to hear from any concerned voices about what they fear would be the potential impact on consumers of AMD’s move on the supply chain as well as on the subsequent state of competition. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/08/amd_xilinx_merger/
[2] https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/advanced-micro-devices-inc-slash-xilinx-inc-merger-inquiry
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/27/amd_xilinx_results/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/08/amd_xilinx_merger/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/servers&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YJlYnTbYtItnQUFxFFg7vQAAAIY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/servers&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJlYnTbYtItnQUFxFFg7vQAAAIY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/servers&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YJlYnTbYtItnQUFxFFg7vQAAAIY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/25/smartnic_dpu/
[9] http://www.theregister.com/2020/10/27/amd_xilinx_results/
[10] http://www.theregister.com/2020/10/09/amd_xilinx/
[11] http://www.theregister.com/2021/04/22/tenstorrent_sifive_intelligence_x280_licensed/
[12] http://www.theregister.com/2021/02/23/xilinx_sn1000_launch/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/10/xilinx_versatile_premium_fpga/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/14/huawei_fcc_filing/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2015/06/01/intel_snaps_up_altera_for_16_7bn/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
1, The monopolies commission have to justify themselves.
2, The whole world looks to Global-Britain (tm) for leadership in international rules
3, Intel gave someone in govt a free coffee mug
Xilinx are a San Jose California business, wtf has it got to do with the UK competition watchdog?
I can think of a few things they should have got into but didn't, but what I am I missing about them interfering where they have no business?
UK doesn't like competition
Softbank is trying to stifle competition by paying off regulators... Nvidia, Intel, and ARM would have more competition and they can't handle it bc as we have seen is once the playing field is level AMD stomps the competition... hopefully they will not allow the big boys to once again retain their monopolies through their power of the purse... but who knows as the corruption in the UK is wide spread
So AMD has $35bn to throw around
Good news. It would seem, however, that I'm going to have to revise my rating of AMD as "plucky underdog" and upgrade it to full-blown dog.
Even better news, actually. Intel is going to need to up its game.
Consumers will benefit.
Re: So AMD has $35bn to throw around
Funny thing is, Altera always was the "plucky underdog" of the FPGA business, and Xilinx the dominant company (but only around a 40/60 split of the market, not the 90/10 dominance that Intel had in CPUs). At the time we first heard of Intel buying Altera, I did suggest that Xilinx should buy AMD.
My response is in.
I previously responded to the other enquiry, so it was basically a matter of cutting and pasting, with a few alterations. For what it's worth.
It amuses me...
...to see the UK trying to be any way relevant on the global tech stage. Cute. [Pats UK CMA on head] "There's a good watchdog, but that's enough playtime, now back in your basket..."
Intel have an FPGA unit too. What's the problem exactly?