Solid-Stark said:
Perhaps so. But they wouldn't necessarily disappear, they would only be bought off. |
Their graphics division has value. Their CPU division? Not really. They're about 40% behind on IPC and it would take billions of additional investment and at least five years to overcome that, at the end of which they'd be competing with a company still ten times the size by most metrics and with an unassailable process technology lead (22nm by two years, 14nm by over three) AND in a shrinking market (desktops and high-end laptops). Also their current contract states their x86 license is void in the event of a buyout, so add a few billion in settlement money to Intel first.
Any sane company wishing to make custom CPUs would just buy into custom ARM chips, and maybe a few key hires from AMD which should be easy.
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@BlueFalcon
I don't gamble like that. If I had $1000 I didn't need I'd certainly have it on a <$1 AMD put option for about a year's time.
Their roadmap is frankly shit. 20% performance increase by 2015 was their own estimate. Meanwhile Intel is 40% ahead and will be getting more ahead on process tech all the time.
I agree they won't die immediately, but they will cease to be competitive at all by say Q2 next year and cannot recover.
They have no hope of design wins without process tech parity or a competitive core, neither of which they have plans for. Prices are already cut as much as they can be.
