Intel Will Buy nVIDIA (ZT)

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Intel Will Buy nVIDIA

Robert Cringely

http://www.cringely.com/2009/12/intel-will-buy-nvidia/

There is a funky dance going on right now between chip giants Intel and nVIDIA and I just want to cut through the crap and tell you that no matter what the companies are saying it is likely to end with nVIDIA being purchased by Intel. Both parties know it and the only thing that hasn’t been determined yet is the price, which is what all this posturing is about.

Intel this week cancelled Larrabee, its proposed graphics processing unit (GPU) that was intended to compete with both nVIDIA and ATi (now a part of AMD). The moment AMD bought ATi Intel had to decide whether to build or buy its own GPU to stay in contention. They decided to build, or at least said they had. It’s hard to say how viable Larrabee ever was but at some point it turned from a weapon against nVIDIA to a barrier to Intel buying nVIDIA. So Larrabee had to go, because without that chip Intel presents a much less imposing target for the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission which might oppose a merger on anti-trust grounds.

With Larrabee, Intel could be seen as crushing a major rival. Without Larrabee, Intel is just trying to enter a new market.

Intel wants nVIDIA not just for its GPU’s but also for its mobile chips. Mobile is a big part of the future of computing yet Intel in 2006 cancelled its business aimed at handset makers, writing-off $5 billion in the process. Remember that? Despite attempting to back-in to the market again with its upcoming Moorestown post-Atom low-power processors, what Intel would really like are nVidia’s superior Tegra AXP chips aimed at mobile phones and media players. Ironically nVIDIA didn’t even design the Tegra processors, which it bought a couple years ago with Portal Player.

Intel had to do something the minute AMD bought ATi. Now with Larrabee gone Intel has no real choice but to buy another company to remain in contention. The only such company available is nVIDIA.

Notice how Intel has been making a serious effort lately to settle the anti-trust cases pending against it, especially with AMD, to which Intel is paying $1.25 billion. Yet against nVIDIA, the legal action actually appears to be heating-up. Why would Intel hold an olive branch for all the others yet still oppose nVIDIA? Again it is to drive down the price of an eventual acquisition and Intel has nothing to fear from an nVIDIA legal case if its actual intention is to buy the company, retiring the lawsuit.

But the action is not all coming from Intel. Last month nVIDIA announced they were suspending development of chipsets for new Intel processors. Later we read that nVIDIA was going to release a chipset for Intel’s Lynnfield processors only to have Intel question the validity of nVIDIA’s license to the Intel’s Direct Media Iinterconnect (MDI) technology, which connects Lynnfield processors to the chipset. Both companies are talking tough and so far nVIDIA has not released a product that supports Intel’s Core i7 or Core i5 processors, yet without Larrabee Intel really needs that support no matter how much they fume.

Meanwhile nVIDIA has its own Ion low-power System-on-Chip for portable Internet devices and, inspired by AMD/ATi’s Fusion forthcoming CPU/GPU hybrid, nVIDIA has been working on a similar chip of its own. Intel reportedly was, too, with Larrabee, but now that’s over.

Intel could effectively block the nVIDIA hybrid processor through the MDI licensing ploy, above, and doing just that would have worked to the advantage of both Intel and AMD while Larrabee was still viable. I suspect this may have been a big part of Intel’s reason for settling the AMD anti-trust suit. It may have been part of their argument to AMD, too, about why the smaller company ought to settle at this time, because doing so would remove an nVIDIA threat. The big question is whether Intel knew at the time that Larrabee was doomed? If they did, then the real plan was for Intel to absorb the nVIDIA hybrid processor and make it its own, which they can effectively do now that AMD has promised not to testify against Intel under any circumstances as part of their legal settlement.

That would be Intel turning the tables on AMD, which may have been suckered.

If this reads like a huge conspiracy theory that’s because it is.

But sometimes conspiracy theories are true.

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详讯：消息称英特尔将收购NVIDIA

新浪科技

      据国外媒体报道，美国知名IT专栏作家罗伯特·科林吉里(Robert Cringely)周二撰文称，英特尔很可能将会收购NVIDIA，目前唯一无法确定的只是价格问题。

　　科林吉里指出，英特尔本周宣布取消Larrabee图形处理器(以下简称“GPU”)的开发计划，该处理器原本的目标是与NVIDIA和ATi展开竞争。在ADM收购ATi之际，英特尔不得不就生产自己的GPU还是购买GPU的问题作出决定，最终选择了自己生产。

　　科林吉里称：“很难说Larrabee的可行程度有多大，但从某种意义上来说，它已经从用来抵抗NVIDIA的武器变成了英特尔收购 NVIDIA的障碍。因此，英特尔不得不放弃Larrabee，原因是没有了这种芯片，在可能处于反垄断目的而反对英特尔收购NVIDIA交易的美国司法部和联邦贸易委员会眼中，英特尔的目标就不会那么大。”

　　科林吉里指出：“有了Larrabee，英特尔可能被视为试图摧毁一家主要的竞争对手；没有Larrabee，则英特尔只不过是尝试进入一个新市场而已。”

　　科林吉里认为，英特尔想要收购NVIDIA，不仅是为了GPU，同时也是为了手机芯片。在AMD收购ATi时，英特尔不得不做点什么；而到了现在，在取消Larrabee计划以后，英特尔已经别无选择，必须收购另一家公司以保留其竞争能力。科林吉里指出，目前唯一能供英特尔收购的就是 NVIDIA。

　　科林吉里还指出，英特尔付出了相当大的努力才就多项反垄断诉讼达成了和解，其中为与AMD达成和解而支付了12.5亿美元；但在英特尔与其他公司达成和解的同时，却独独反对与NVIDIA和解，其目的在于压低最终收购该公司时的价格。而且，如果英特尔的实际目的是收购NVIDIA，那么来自于后者的司法诉讼就丝毫不值得害怕，原因是收购交易将迫使NVIDIA撤回诉状。

　　科林吉里称，并非只有英特尔采取了行动。NVIDIA在上个月宣布，该公司将暂停为新的英特尔处理器开发芯片组，此后有消息称NVIDIA将为英特尔的Lynnfield处理器推出一套芯片组。两家公司正就此进行谈判，截至目前为止NVIDIA尚未推出一种支持英特尔Core i7或Core i5处理器的产品。在没有Larrabee的情况下，英特尔的确非常需要这种支持。

ajs

收盘前就看见了这条新闻，股市咋没啥反应涅？

tenonamo

NVDA 昨天已经大涨了

xiaoshitou

昨天只是对Intel Delay Larrabee的反应吧？