The shark is circling and there appears to be blood in the water. According to another report, a major company is considering acquiring Intel, which is in financial trouble.
This comes from the tech YouTube channel “Moore’s Law Is Dead,” where Tom S. reported “whispers” about a possible acquisition by Apple. He also claimed that Samsung is interested in acquiring or merging with chipmakers.
We’ve been hearing whispers of this as Inter struggle to catch up this year. The company has made multiple rounds of layoffs in the last year, with a reported 15,000 employees laid off in August.
Based on early reviews of Intel’s Arrow Lake chipsets, the report states that the next Intel chips may have been rushed to ship, leading to system crashes, compatibility issues, and inconsistencies. Masu. This all sounds very similar to the early issues of Raptor Lake’s launch.
This all comes after Intel and AMD established an x86 advisory group as Arm-based chipsets like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite, launched this summer with Microsoft’s Copilot Plus PC, gain a more significant foothold in the PC world. It happened. However, Arm and Qualcomm are in the midst of a legal battle over licensing that could affect Qualcomm’s expansion into PC processors.
Apple and Samsung aren’t the only big tech companies reportedly considering acquiring Intel. In September, it was reported that Qualcomm had approached Intel about a possible acquisition.
To be clear, as Tom has reiterated many times, these are all rumors, and it’s not clear whether the Intel acquisition is actually in the works. But he suggested Samsung is closer to any deal than Apple or Qualcomm, whether it’s an outright acquisition or a merger.
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What does Samsung get from this?
Like Intel, Samsung has struggled with its own Exynos chips and may not introduce new versions this year due to poor yields. A merger or acquisition could give Samsung more foundries and expertise to improve its Exynos product line.
It doesn’t help that TSMC is eating Samsung’s lunch, especially when it comes to new 3nm process and potentially 2nm-based processors launching next year or 2026. Apple uses TSMC to build its M4 and A18 SoCs, and Qualcomm also uses TSMC to make its chips. TSMC is now building processors for everyone.
Additionally, Tom suggests that if Samsung were to acquire Intel, it would prevent Qualcomm from becoming the new Samsung, as Qualcomm would compete in some overlapping areas.
Why would Apple buy Intel?
First of all, as the report speculates, Apple may be looking to acquire Intel to prevent Qualcomm from becoming an even bigger force in the market.
Apple continues to steadily manufacture its own parts without deterring competitors. As mentioned earlier, TSMC currently makes chips for Apple, but we can see that Apple wants to reduce its dependence on them.
Acquiring Intel would give Apple a stronger foothold in semiconductor manufacturing and give Apple access to Intel’s myriad patents. That would change how Apple handles its M series of iPad and Mac chips.
That said, if any of the companies mentioned were to seriously pursue an Intel acquisition, it could introduce significant regulatory considerations, especially in the US, where Intel is a large company.
