They should start producing ARM chips. They could finally get a piece of the smartphone market, which would not cannibalize their x86 sales (which I assume is the reason why they have refused to use ARM since the sale of xScale).
> The StrongARM is a family of computer microprocessors developed by Digital Equipment Corporation and manufactured in the late 1990s which implemented the ARM v4 instruction set architecture. It was later acquired by Intel in 1997 from DEC's own Digital Semiconductor division as part of a settlement of a lawsuit between the two companies over patent infringement. Intel then continued to manufacture it before replacing it with the StrongARM-derived ARM-based follow-up architecture called XScale in the early 2000s.
However, after developing and manufacturing these for nine years, Intel exited this business by selling their ARM unit to Marvell. Intel was developing its own “low power” x86 chip, the Atom, and decided to put all its mobile eggs in that basket, which unfortunately was never as low power as comparable ARM designs. I suspect Intel also saw that the number of licensees in the ARM market was growing and competition along with it, their value-add wasn’t that great, and their margins were necessarily smaller due to the ARM licensing fees.
Intel can't compete in that market. The margins are too low: they're organized and staffed to a higher margin business. They're used to the high operating margins of x86. Now that their competition (mainly AMD) has become competent in the past ten years and x86 is decreasing in importance, they're losing their main competitive advantage.
Intel has a massive fab capacity problem right now, in that their fabs aren't being utilized. Doing manufacturing of a high-volume product is exactly what they need, and if that high volume product is their own - all the better.
Does Intel have a competitive microarchitecture in Pc chips at the moment? Arguably, no, they stay afloat with brand recognition and OEM deals.
It’s also symbolic - Intel’s goal is to outcompete ARM (and AMD, Nvidia) in personal computers and the datacenter market. Divesting from ARM Holding sends a signal there is no upside for Intel coming from ARM’s progression up the processor chain.
Yeah, they had the chance to dominate the ARM market with XScale but that ship has long sailed.
Also how is having a small, insignificant stake in ARM itself related to this anyway?
But did you know there are many new core designs every year, and that very few of them are from ARM?
Second, it's very likely that your smartphone won't be ARM starting in the next few years. You'll notice when your battery suddenly lasts longer.
What will be replacing ARM in smartphones in the next few years?
If you’re going to say RISC-V, what leads you to believe that huge performance and power leaps will take place from what RISC-V is today?
Really? It took years for Qualcomm to become competitive with ARM’s cores again. Besides them and Apple what else is there? (Ampere I guess, but they are still insignificant and in an entirely different segment)
Maybe it's time to buy puts on INTC.
I was shocked when I learned that the majority of the Meteor Lake CPU is made by TSMC and that for the next gen Lunar Lake due in September EVERYTHING except the base tile (which is just a 22nm PCB) will be made by TSMC.
The US wants the Intel fabs to be a going concern for strategic reasons but even for them it would be better to put in the investment to make it so, than have them wither away inside intel.
Instead they were commiting suicide by requesting 1.6 volts so they can push 250 watts to win some benchmarks and die in 6 months.
I remember learning about CPU design and manufacure as a kid and was absolutely astounded that any of this shit could be made to work in a practical way. In my eyes Intel was immaculate perfection.
Just as likely that it’s way too late for that now…
Also is ARM really a good investment? They are massively overvalued and don’t have a very good business model.
ARM makes peanuts compared to other chip companies and they can’t really raise prices that much.
Most of their value is in IP but nobody will be allowed to buy them anyway.
Also ARM’s valuation is not exactly rational (their business model is pretty poor) so it seems like a reasonable time to sell
Bought at the time of Arm’s float to show confidence in Arm and that Intel is a key partner - which it wants to be in the shape of Intel Foundry.
Changes nothing material in the relationship. More of a tidying-up exercise with a small profit than anything else.
Edit: This is a much more interesting story on the development of the Softbank / Arm / Intel relationship.
SoftBank scraps AI chips tie-up plan with Intel.
