Intel Corp is in discussions to buy Altera Corp, a designer of specialized computer chips, a person briefed on the matter said on Friday. It would be one of the company’s biggest deals ever.
Specifics including a potential takeover price and timing were unclear, and the person cautioned that talks were continuing and might fall apart.
DIVERSIFICATION
Intel, long regarded as one of the most powerful technology companies, has worked to diversify its customer base as its mainstay business of supplying chips for personal computers has declined amid rising competition from mobile devices.
This month, it cut its sales forecast for the first quarter by nearly US$1 billion, citing weaker-than-expected demand from companies, particularly small businesses, for new PCs.
Under Brian Krzanich, who took over as chief executive officer less than two years ago, Intel has been scrambling to gain a presence in mobile devices and has become a more flexible manufacturer of different kinds of chips. It is also diving into a range of technologies like smartwatches and security products that rely on the human body.
FPGA
Now it is pursuing Altera, a 22-year-old company best known for field-programmable gate arrays, or FPGAs, a type of semiconductor whose functions can be adjusted or upgraded after the product is shipped. These are different from the standard chips that go into computers, Intel’s great strength, which are created for specific tasks.
Chips that can be reprogrammed in the field generally have less power and complexity than their application-specific counterparts, but are popular in automobiles, consumer devices and aerospace products.
Last year, Intel introduced a hybrid FPGA-application specific chip, promising greater speed and flexibility for certain computing tasks.
Altera, based in San Jose, California, reported US$472 million in profit and US$1.9 billion in sales last year.
As of Thursday’s market close, a day before the Wall Street Journal reported the merger talks, Altera had a market value of about US$10 billion.
CASH FLUSH
Intel’s biggest acquisition to date was the US$7.5 billion takeover of the security software maker McAfee Inc nearly five years ago. Just six of its deals have been worth more than US$1 billion, according to data from Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ.
Intel has plenty of resources to do a big deal. The company had US$14.4 billion in cash and short-term investments on its books as of late last year.
Representatives for Intel and Altera declined to comment or were not immediately available for comment.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”