Wall Street thinks Intel will buy Micron

[zalbard]

Source: http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/23...ill-buy-micron

A Wall Street analyst claims that Chipzilla will buy the DRAM maker Micron Technology in a move to diversify its product offerings.

ThinkEquity analyst Krishna Shankar wrote in a note to clients that Intel will make a significant move and acquire MU in order to bring DRAM and NAND technology in-house and sell platform solutions. From Micron's viewpoint, it gives the company the ability to be part of a platform company and extract higher margins from the memory business by selling platform solutions.

Intel will get more things to shove under the bonnet of smartphones and tablets, which may offset the lower price of mobile applications processors versus PC processors. He said that Intel could also design platform processor/memory solutions with lower power, higher performance, smaller form factor.

Micron Technology, which is one of the largest memory chip makers in the world, makes DRAM chips, flash memory chips, and memory modules.

Wow, this could seriously affect both DRAM and NAND markets!
Intel would be pretty much the only option if you're looking for a fast and reliable SSD... DRAM, not sure... I don't think Intel would sell high-speed RAM sticks, but who knows!

[xBanzai89]

Makes me wonder if this guy only thinking this due to AMD releasing some Radeon branded memory for their APU's.

[Chaserjzx100]

hmmmm so many company acquisition to date huh... it's kinda like there's a garage sale of companies that needs to be acquired...

[dng29]

this makes a lot of sense as MU not only makes memory, but flash memory too. this could give intel the edge in ssd manufacturing and undercut competitors in the ssd market. the future is ssd as most of all the tablets use ssd. soon all laptops will be equipped with ssd and eventually desktops. i hope this rumor is true. now, MS needs to buy amd immediately. it'll be a huge strategic move for MS.

[EniGmA1987]

I thought Intel and Micron were already together? Intel doesnt own them completely but I could have sworn they do a ton of stuff together and Intel owned 49% of the company.

[Lanek]

Hum .. don't Micron = Crucial ?

[BeepBeep2]

Hum .. don't Micron = Crucial ?

Yeah, Crucial is a Micron company...they tend to use Micron chips in their ram whenever possible, which is pretty much all the time.

[DesertFox]

Crucial is actually the retail side of Micron, although Micron still sell enterprise solutions, and Micron work in partnership with Intel to produce the nand flash for their drives, which is pretty much why the intel and micron drives are so similar.

[K404]

Very interesting to think that one of the global top-10 semiconductor companies could buy another of the top-10......

[Russian]

I don't really see this as a surprise considering that Intel and micron already have a fab together and they work very closely together as it is already. IMFT anyone?

This won't be as devastating to DRAM and NAND prices/competition as everyone thinks considering that Intel doesn't really have that much control over the market as it is and their acquisition would give them a decent bump in size and control, which they need.

The truth of the matter is, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising.

[qcmadness]

Acquiring a DRAM / Flash manufacturing company is not a wise idea, especially when the economic is expected to be weak.

[Russian]

Acquiring a DRAM / Flash manufacturing company is not a wise idea, especially when the economic is expected to be weak.

This is indeed true, unless this is a long term play (which it is). No matter what happens in the future in terms of the economy, if Intel wants to remain an important player in the SSD world they need to assert their dominance. Buying MU definitely asserts that.

[[XC] gomeler]

Makes me wonder if this guy only thinking this due to AMD releasing some Radeon branded memory for their APU's.

Highly doubt it. The NAND pipeline is far more important for future growth for Intel.

[naokaji]

Acquiring a DRAM / Flash manufacturing company is not a wise idea, especially when the economic is expected to be weak.

Except if you score a bargain due to that.

[antiacid]

This is indeed true, unless this is a long term play (which it is). No matter what happens in the future in terms of the economy, if Intel wants to remain an important player in the SSD world they need to assert their dominance. Buying MU definitely asserts that.

At the moment, corps are sitting on giant piles of money and don't really know where the economy will go. If they think it'll go well, they'll buy other corps. If they think it'll not go well, they hold on to their money a while longer.

Intel buying Micron would be a smart move towards embedded systems (ram/ssd/mobo/cpu combo?) and there's a lot of money to be made there, both now and in the future.

[zanzabar]

Except if you score a bargain due to that.

no that makes it even a worse idea, intel already has alot of nand from micron on reserve and intel gets a great deal on it since they traded IP for rights to buy first. the dram is not economicly profitable and the nand is not stable since once some1 makes something better every1 moves as nand is not something that has large enough demand yet for good nand that its just 2 classes (crap and ssd) and no1 wants slower ssd stuff thats why toshiba is sold out now and preordered for months if not the rest of the year+ since they have the best with the new 20nm toggle nand.

so why would intel buy a company when they buy their product for what amounts to material cost.

[bamtan2]

they are already working together on their joint memory business, so if this guy thinks that business is going well, he could find synergy in them merging. it makes good sense to me. micron is good company and so is intel!

[qcmadness]

Highly doubt it. The NAND pipeline is far more important for future growth for Intel.

there is too many NAND producers in the market and you will not save significantly if you get them from your subsidiary.

[Aberration]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numonyx

[Micutzu]

Acquiring a DRAM / Flash manufacturing company is not a wise idea, especially when the economic is expected to be weak.

It is an investment, as every trimestrial financial report from Intel comes with a new record in profits or income, aquiring a company well established in making key components in everything that uses any form of CPU can't be a bad thing. SSD's, tablets and smartphones are all growing segments and all use alot of flash memory, Intel has CPU's in more than 4 out of 5 desktops, servers or laptops and all use more and more DRAM with every generation ... why NOT have a DRAM/flash company in your back yard ?