GF Emerges as Lead Candidate to Buy IBM Chip Plants

[madcho]

Globalfoundries Inc. has emerged as the leading candidate to buy International Business Machines Corp.'s semiconductor-making operations, said people familiar with the matter.

IBM also held talks with chip makers Intel Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the people said, but TSMC has dropped out of the talks. While Intel is still involved, Globalfoundries appears to have a stronger interest, they said.

Talks...

source : Wall street journal

[bearcatrp]

What does IBM know that the rest of us doesn't. They were smart to unload there PC division. Something new must be coming down the pike for processors.

[onewingedangel]

IBM don't have the volume to push forward with the ever increasing costs of process development. It's more efficient for them to have their products manufactured by a foundry.

[qcmadness]

GF wants to be No. 1 foundry?

[zanzabar]

What does IBM know that the rest of us doesn't. They were smart to unload there PC division. Something new must be coming down the pike for processors.

ibm dropped their pc division, but now it (lenovo) is the 3rd largest and fastest growing.

[Zloyd]

I think IBM made the PS3 chip ? Maybe now they just dont have customers for their chips .. with the emergence of mobile chips as well they prolly want to play it safe and sit it out.

[stuffme]

What kind of factories IBM has at their disposal at the moment?

[Lanek]

I think IBM made the PS3 chip ? Maybe now they just dont have customers for their chips .. with the emergence of mobile chips as well they prolly want to play it safe and sit it out.

IBM is specialized on server and HPC CPU's / systems. .. the mobile market, or even the pc consumer market, they strictly dont care.. This make now years they have stop anything with PC, or consumer PC system, hardware...

Back to topic, it seems clear than GF is anyway in a good shape for this IBM fundry buy. Finally, they allready collaborate with IBM since a long time.

[madcho]

IBM used mostly their processes to do research and Radio Frequency chips. Now it's certainly too costly to keep and do research with it. They prefer rent from other company. They may have more choice in research, and less cost for low volume.

They will use more CMP like other researchers.

[zalbard]

IBM used mostly their processes to do research and Radio Frequency chips. Now it's certainly too costly to keep and do research with it. They prefer rent from other company. They may have more choice in research, and less cost for low volume.

Makes sense.

I don't think the volume of PowerPC chips is high, either.

[Levish]

IBM is specialized on server and HPC CPU's / systems. .. the mobile market, or even the pc consumer market, they strictly dont care.. This make now years they have stop anything with PC, or consumer PC system, hardware...

Back to topic, it seems clear than GF is anyway in a good shape for this IBM fundry buy. Finally, they allready collaborate with IBM since a long time.

+ software; and they also sold their System X server business as well ("low end").

I'm pretty sure "they strictly don't care" is incorrect, they just don't want to pursue a market where the margins are too low to justify it.

[madcho]

+ software; and they also sold their System X server business as well ("low end").

I'm pretty sure "they strictly don't care" is incorrect, they just don't want to pursue a market where the margins are too low to justify it.

agree, margins are more in engineering, research and B2B.


Producing, require only invest in fab and licences, and more and more fabs are turning to market. Intel / GF, ... so market get more and more offer for same production. So margins, that was low, get more and more low.

And GF invest a lot to get a rival to TSMC, they increased a lot their production since AMD sold.