AMD acquires Xilinx

[Karel]

AMD and Xilinx Stockholders Overwhelmingly Approve AMD’s Acquisition of Xilinx

https://www.amd.com/en/press-releases/2021-04-07-amd-and-xilinx-stockholders-overwhelmingly-approve-amd-s-acquisition

[ataradov]

Intel was ok for Altera, hopefully same holds for Xilinx/AMD.

[RoGeorge]

Wow!  Looks like soon all the chip manufacturers will become a single company.

Does this type of merges/acquisitions happen in other industries, too?

[daqq]

Does this type of merges/acquisitions happen in other industries, too?

Yes. See:

[langwadt]

tools

[PKTKS]

Not surprised.

All facts are converging to that since the 90s.

Mostly after 2000s  all video cards fabs. collapsed to just 2 or 3
AMD NV and still trying Intel

All soft small buz failed imploded by MS and or uncle goo...

So having ARM on NV hand  and Xilinx  on AMD and the
full vertical soft stack now almost on hands of just IBM/RHEL
Canonical (MS shell) and goooo Android..

The CARTEL is obviously done and the results are clearly ahead.

Nothing new. CARTEL although "theoretical" disliked..
seem to be very welcome when the money flows on the (proper) hands

Same players.. results will be tragic.. very worried about such moves
repeatedly letting vast majority  hopeless

Paul

[gnuarm]

Wow!  Looks like soon all the chip manufacturers will become a single company.

Does this type of merges/acquisitions happen in other industries, too?

Ever hear of a little company called General Motors?  How about Fiat Chrysler Automobiles/Stellantis?  The UK had over a dozen car companies before WWII, but ended up with just two or three, I couldn't keep track.  Other than Rolls and Bentley I'm not sure they have any now... opps, Rolls is owned by BMW and Bentley is owned by VW.  Oh, well.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Wow!  Looks like soon all the chip manufacturers will become a single company.

Does this type of merges/acquisitions happen in other industries, too?

Ever hear of a little company called General Motors?  How about Fiat Chrysler Automobiles/Stellantis?  The UK had over a dozen car companies before WWII, but ended up with just two or three, I couldn't keep track.  Other than Rolls and Bentley I'm not sure they have any now... opps, Rolls is owned by BMW and Bentley is owned by VW.  Oh, well.

One of the reasons for the demise of the British car industry was the nationalization of it - British Leyland. They made appalling vehicles. The workers even used to sleep on the job. It became a huge issue in the late 70s. https://www.aronline.co.uk/archive/sleeping-on-the-job-essay/

[JohnnyMalaria]

Wow!  Looks like soon all the chip manufacturers will become a single company.

Does this type of merges/acquisitions happen in other industries, too?

In 1993, I joined a company called Glaxo Group Research. In 1995, it merged with Burroughs-Wellcome to become GlaxoWellcome. In another universe, Smith, Kline and French (est. 1830) merged with Beckman Instruments to become SmithKline Beckman and, in turn, with Beecham to become SmithKline Beecham. In 2000, SmithKline Beecham and GlaxoWellcome "merged" (i.e., it was a take-over) to form what is now GlaxoSmithKline. Similarly, in 1998, the Swedish company Astra AB and British company Zeneca merged. Just a couple of examples.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_mergers_and_acquisitions

[langwadt]

Wow!  Looks like soon all the chip manufacturers will become a single company.

Does this type of merges/acquisitions happen in other industries, too?

Ever hear of a little company called General Motors?  How about Fiat Chrysler Automobiles/Stellantis?  The UK had over a dozen car companies before WWII, but ended up with just two or three, I couldn't keep track.  Other than Rolls and Bentley I'm not sure they have any now... opps, Rolls is owned by BMW and Bentley is owned by VW.  Oh, well.

[gnuarm]

Even that graphic doesn't show all the companies that merged into larger companies only to be lost as a brand.  GM had Pontiac and Oldsmobile which no longer exist among others.  AMC was the merger of a number of auto companies and itself is no longer a brand.  Same with many of the British auto makers. 

Largely this is a result of the economies of scale.  We like to gripe about how inefficient large companies are, but in reality size makes a company more efficient.  This is very similar between auto makers and semiconductor companies.  The main difference is the enormous startup costs of forming a new auto company, many billions of dollars.  A semiconductor company can start with much smaller funding because the means of production can be outsourced.  It's still not cheap, but it is manageable.  The only successful new auto company in 50 years is Tesla which is really an EV platform company that markets their products in the form of cars.  What they are really selling is motors and batteries, they just give you the car for free.

[Gyro]

I wonder who's got their sights on Lattice these days - their CEO is ex-AMD and their focus has become quite narrow considering the number of companies they bought up.

[langwadt]

Even that graphic doesn't show all the companies that merged into larger companies only to be lost as a brand.  GM had Pontiac and Oldsmobile which no longer exist among others.  AMC was the merger of a number of auto companies and itself is no longer a brand.  Same with many of the British auto makers. 

and I know since that graphic PSA and FCA have merged

Largely this is a result of the economies of scale.  We like to gripe about how inefficient large companies are, but in reality size makes a company more efficient.  This is very similar between auto makers and semiconductor companies.  The main difference is the enormous startup costs of forming a new auto company, many billions of dollars.  A semiconductor company can start with much smaller funding because the means of production can be outsourced.  It's still not cheap, but it is manageable.  The only successful new auto company in 50 years is Tesla which is really an EV platform company that markets their products in the form of cars.  What they are really selling is motors and batteries, they just give you the car for free.

yeh, when Volkswagen spend bilions making a new car, it'll be sold as a VW, Audi,Seat,Skoda in slightly different packaging but all the internals and the spareparts are the same

[endure]

Toyota built their British manufacturing plant in  Burnaston in 199-92. When  they were advertising jobs they were open to applications from anyone APART from those who had previously worked  in the UK car industry.

[gnuarm]

I wonder who's got their sights on Lattice these days - their CEO is ex-AMD and their focus has become quite narrow considering the number of companies they bought up.

Not sure what you mean.  Lattice has bought up a lot of companies???  I know they bought Silicon Blue quite some time ago.  Or did you mean AMD has bought lots of companies?  How does that indicate a narrow focus?

My main issue with Lattice is while X and A are shooting large bore guns at the high end of FPGAs, Lattice is shooting bird shot at the low end, specifically targeted to the mobile market requiring very tiny packages with very fine PCB features.  No one is addressing a middle range of easy to use, low impact packaging with other than microscope size parts.  I can very seldom use a 1 kLUT device.  I typically need more than 20 or 30 I/Os.  Now days that puts me in a ~200 pin BGA!  I'd like to see a family of FPGAs that encroach on MCU territory. 

I did see where Altera has Cyclone IV parts in a FBGA-169 package with 1.0 mm pitch, but even at JLCPCB it's a $20 part.  That's the smallest part in the family and it has NO multipliers.

[Gyro]

No, Lattice. They bought up Silicon Image too, for their HDMI IP.  They seem to have been hit / constrained by a couple of large stock acquisitions in the past few years and Trump blocked their purchase in 2017 by Canyon Bridge on national security (foreign investment) grounds.

According to Wikipedia, their ex-AMD CEO since 2018 has moved their focus exclusively to low power FPGAs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_Semiconductor

Just a casual personal interest from times past.

[Someone]

My main issue with Lattice is while X and A are shooting large bore guns at the high end of FPGAs, Lattice is shooting bird shot at the low end, specifically targeted to the mobile market requiring very tiny packages with very fine PCB features.  No one is addressing a middle range of easy to use, low impact packaging with other than microscope size parts.  I can very seldom use a 1 kLUT device.  I typically need more than 20 or 30 I/Os.  Now days that puts me in a ~200 pin BGA!  I'd like to see a family of FPGAs that encroach on MCU territory. 

I did see where Altera has Cyclone IV parts in a FBGA-169 package with 1.0 mm pitch, but even at JLCPCB it's a $20 part.  That's the smallest part in the family and it has NO multipliers.

Hand solderable parts? ICE40, MachXO or IGLOO nano, cheap small, stocked.

You want a hand solderable part that has multipliers? Spartan 3, or the odd parts from Efinix, Spartan 6, or ICE40

[Bassman59]

My main issue with Lattice is while X and A are shooting large bore guns at the high end of FPGAs, Lattice is shooting bird shot at the low end, specifically targeted to the mobile market requiring very tiny packages with very fine PCB features.  No one is addressing a middle range of easy to use, low impact packaging with other than microscope size parts.  I can very seldom use a 1 kLUT device.  I typically need more than 20 or 30 I/Os.  Now days that puts me in a ~200 pin BGA!  I'd like to see a family of FPGAs that encroach on MCU territory. 

Microchip (formerly Microsemi, formerly Actel, speaking of acquisitions!) Igloo nano might be the ticket.

I did see where Altera has Cyclone IV parts in a FBGA-169 package with 1.0 mm pitch, but even at JLCPCB it's a $20 part.  That's the smallest part in the family and it has NO multipliers.

$20 without the configuration storage device.

[gnuarm]

No, Lattice. They bought up Silicon Image too, for their HDMI IP.  They seem to have been hit / constrained by a couple of large stock acquisitions in the past few years and Trump blocked their purchase in 2017 by Canyon Bridge on national security (foreign investment) grounds.

According to Wikipedia, their ex-AMD CEO since 2018 has moved their focus exclusively to low power FPGAs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_Semiconductor

Just a casual personal interest from times past.

I think this story has grown with each retelling.  Never take Wikipedia literally without confirming with the sources if they have any.  Going back to the source which is just a report on a Lattice event the only relevant quote is, Lattice wants to "become the low power programmable leader".  They didn't use the much stronger term "moved their focus exclusively to low power FPGAs".  It's not hard to become the low power leader because no one else is really addressing that market.  It correlates with smaller and lower margin devices which the other players are not so interested in.  However, they don't want to wake up one morning to find Lattice and others have eaten their breakfast, so I'm sure they are making inroads into this market.  Not unlike Tesla and the major auto makers.  No one is standing still.  They just aren't falling over themselves to get out of Tesla's way because Tesla has a long way to go to catch up.  Likewise with Lattice.

[gnuarm]

My main issue with Lattice is while X and A are shooting large bore guns at the high end of FPGAs, Lattice is shooting bird shot at the low end, specifically targeted to the mobile market requiring very tiny packages with very fine PCB features.  No one is addressing a middle range of easy to use, low impact packaging with other than microscope size parts.  I can very seldom use a 1 kLUT device.  I typically need more than 20 or 30 I/Os.  Now days that puts me in a ~200 pin BGA!  I'd like to see a family of FPGAs that encroach on MCU territory. 

I did see where Altera has Cyclone IV parts in a FBGA-169 package with 1.0 mm pitch, but even at JLCPCB it's a $20 part.  That's the smallest part in the family and it has NO multipliers.

Hand solderable parts? ICE40, MachXO or IGLOO nano, cheap small, stocked.

You want a hand solderable part that has multipliers? Spartan 3, or the odd parts from Efinix, Spartan 6, or ICE40

I gave a fair description of my needs that very few if any of the Lattice parts meet.  The XO3D does the job, but is not so cheap.  Spartan 3 devices are older than the XP devices that are EOL in the design I may need to refresh.  No way I'm putting them in a new product.  They are also increasing in price. 

I've never found an IGLOO part that was cheap.  Which Spartan 6 part are you talking about?  Maybe the QFP144 that is wider than my board?  The iCE40 parts all either have too few I/Os or too few LUTs.  I have a Lattice selection guide with the useful combinations highlighted and none other than the higher priced XO3D has what I need. 

The Gowin GW1N-9 in a 100 QFP would be perfect.  But they are not well respected by the US government, so it's not a good idea to use their parts in products sold to government agencies.  I don't want to end up in a Huawei like situation. 

[Someone]

My main issue with Lattice is while X and A are shooting large bore guns at the high end of FPGAs, Lattice is shooting bird shot at the low end, specifically targeted to the mobile market requiring very tiny packages with very fine PCB features.  No one is addressing a middle range of easy to use, low impact packaging with other than microscope size parts.  I can very seldom use a 1 kLUT device.  I typically need more than 20 or 30 I/Os.  Now days that puts me in a ~200 pin BGA!  I'd like to see a family of FPGAs that encroach on MCU territory. 

I did see where Altera has Cyclone IV parts in a FBGA-169 package with 1.0 mm pitch, but even at JLCPCB it's a $20 part.  That's the smallest part in the family and it has NO multipliers.

Hand solderable parts? ICE40, MachXO or IGLOO nano, cheap small, stocked.

You want a hand solderable part that has multipliers? Spartan 3, or the odd parts from Efinix, Spartan 6, or ICE40

I gave a fair description of my needs that very few if any of the Lattice parts meet.  The XO3D does the job, but is not so cheap.  Spartan 3 devices are older than the XP devices that are EOL in the design I may need to refresh.  No way I'm putting them in a new product.  They are also increasing in price. 

I've never found an IGLOO part that was cheap.  Which Spartan 6 part are you talking about?  Maybe the QFP144 that is wider than my board?  The iCE40 parts all either have too few I/Os or too few LUTs.  I have a Lattice selection guide with the useful combinations highlighted and none other than the higher priced XO3D has what I need. 

The Gowin GW1N-9 in a 100 QFP would be perfect.  But they are not well respected by the US government, so it's not a good idea to use their parts in products sold to government agencies.  I don't want to end up in a Huawei like situation.

Space, power, price, and performance constrained and you want hand solderable?

I'd like all sorts of things for low volume use, but don't complain that big companies aren't addressing tiny tiny niches.

Small packages need small connections, you're dead in the water right from the start.

p.s. you didn't mention size constraints in the original post.

[gnuarm]

My main issue with Lattice is while X and A are shooting large bore guns at the high end of FPGAs, Lattice is shooting bird shot at the low end, specifically targeted to the mobile market requiring very tiny packages with very fine PCB features.  No one is addressing a middle range of easy to use, low impact packaging with other than microscope size parts.  I can very seldom use a 1 kLUT device.  I typically need more than 20 or 30 I/Os.  Now days that puts me in a ~200 pin BGA!  I'd like to see a family of FPGAs that encroach on MCU territory. 

I did see where Altera has Cyclone IV parts in a FBGA-169 package with 1.0 mm pitch, but even at JLCPCB it's a $20 part.  That's the smallest part in the family and it has NO multipliers.

Hand solderable parts? ICE40, MachXO or IGLOO nano, cheap small, stocked.

You want a hand solderable part that has multipliers? Spartan 3, or the odd parts from Efinix, Spartan 6, or ICE40

I gave a fair description of my needs that very few if any of the Lattice parts meet.  The XO3D does the job, but is not so cheap.  Spartan 3 devices are older than the XP devices that are EOL in the design I may need to refresh.  No way I'm putting them in a new product.  They are also increasing in price. 

I've never found an IGLOO part that was cheap.  Which Spartan 6 part are you talking about?  Maybe the QFP144 that is wider than my board?  The iCE40 parts all either have too few I/Os or too few LUTs.  I have a Lattice selection guide with the useful combinations highlighted and none other than the higher priced XO3D has what I need. 

The Gowin GW1N-9 in a 100 QFP would be perfect.  But they are not well respected by the US government, so it's not a good idea to use their parts in products sold to government agencies.  I don't want to end up in a Huawei like situation.

Space, power, price, and performance constrained and you want hand solderable?

I never said anything about hand solderable.  That was you. 

I'd like all sorts of things for low volume use, but don't complain that big companies aren't addressing tiny tiny niches.

Small packages need small connections, you're dead in the water right from the start.

p.s. you didn't mention size constraints in the original post.

I also didn't give my address and phone number.  I described what I need in general terms as being the mid range without the large BGA packaging and without the micro requirements on board design rules.  People have told me more than once it's not hard to find vendors that can work with 0.5 mm pitch BGAs, but they are still high pin count and so more expensive.  They test every I/O and that takes time.  Test time on the very expensive testers are what separates the low cost chips from the more expensive parts until the die gets big enough to dominate the costs. 

[jmelson]

$20 without the configuration storage device.

Spartan 3A in the 50K LUT size is $10 without config device, or $13 with internal SPROM.  I use the SST (now Altera, I think) serial EPROMS for external loading, they are something like $0.79.

Jon

[srb1954]

Wow!  Looks like soon all the chip manufacturers will become a single company.

Does this type of merges/acquisitions happen in other industries, too?

Ever hear of a little company called General Motors?  How about Fiat Chrysler Automobiles/Stellantis?  The UK had over a dozen car companies before WWII, but ended up with just two or three, I couldn't keep track.  Other than Rolls and Bentley I'm not sure they have any now... opps, Rolls is owned by BMW and Bentley is owned by VW.  Oh, well.

Morgan is still independent and Aston-Martin is semi-independent of the global conglomerates.

[EEEnthusiast]

Too many mergers is bad for engineering jobs.. Every time they merge, they identify redundant jobs and fire the engineers who are doing the same jobs in both companies.