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AMD to acquire chip maker 'Xilinx' for U$35 billion

nolifebr

nolifebr

Banned
Sep 1, 2018
11,465
Curitiba/BR
Didn't saw a thread about this...

AMD to Acquire Xilinx, Creating the Industry's High Performance Computing Leader
  • Expands AMD's rapidly growing data center business
  • Xilinx, the No. 1 provider of adaptive computing solutions, increases AMD TAM to $110 billion
  • Immediately accretive to AMD margins, cash flow and EPS
  • All stock transaction with combined enterprise value of approximately $135 billion
 

Raigor

Member
May 14, 2020
15,143
Nvidia spending $40 billion on ARM and now AMD for Xilinx.

Zenimax acquisition is peanuts compared to this lol
 
Hero of Legend

Hero of Legend

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,610
So Nvidia got ARM and now AMD gets Xilinx.

What does Xilinx make specifically? Any of the big three use them?
 
Maple

Maple

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,729
While Xilinx won't help AMD in the CPU and GPU space (I don't think), it will significantly increase AMD's revenue, and opportunity for revenue in the future.

Which means more money for R&D for things like CPUs/GPUs. The larger AMD becomes, the more of a longstanding threat they pose to Intel and Nvidia. That's a good thing for competition.
 
Nostremitus

Nostremitus

Member
Nov 15, 2017
7,777
Alabama
Maple said:
While Xilinx won't help AMD in the CPU and GPU space (I don't think), it will significantly increase AMD's revenue, and opportunity for revenue in the future.

Which means more money for R&D for things like CPUs/GPUs. The larger AMD becomes, the more of a longstanding threat they pose to Intel and Nvidia. That's a good thing for competition.
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FPGAs can be hardware coded for specific use cases and would perform those functions faster than a general purpose chip...

FPGAs have certain advantages. To begin with, these chips are hardware implementations of algorithms, and hardware is always faster than software. FPGAs are also more deterministic; their latencies are still an order of magnitude less than that of GPUs – hundreds of nanoseconds vs. single-digit microseconds. (GPU users compensate by accommodating the worst-possible timing case in their particular applications.)
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FPGA or GPU? - The evolution continues - Military Embedded Systems

A GE Intelligent Platforms perspective on embedded military electronics trends
militaryembedded.com militaryembedded.com

True hardware raytracing via FPGA (meaning the silicon IS the algorithm, not just hardware designed to run software algorithms better) implementation would be a game changer in terms of framerate times for finishing RT if designed well.
 
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formasymphonic

formasymphonic

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,643
So the rumours were legit. Xilinx is significant for AMD in that it can help them in 5G, AI, & programable hardware iirc. It should be a really good fit for them in an era where Apple make their own CPUs, Nvidia owns ARM, Moore's law isn't applicable as simply as it was before and the industry is ready to move on past the hold that Intel once had over it.

I can definitely see this leading to hardware accelerators in their CPUs, GPUs & SOCs and thats very valuable for their future — It will be interesting to see how far out we see the fruits of this are though.
 
flattie

flattie

Member
Nov 5, 2017
599
Interesting. So Intel bagged Altera and now AMD get Xilinx. Has this been rumoured at all?
 
Prine

Prine

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
15,724
Raigor said:
Nvidia spending $40 billion on ARM and now AMD for Xilinx.

Zenimax acquisition is peanuts compared to this lol
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Yup, though at the time MS was actively looking to purchase TikTok for $40b cash on top of Zenimax. Lots of business being done by tech giants during covid. The whole sector is doing quite well particularly in this environment.

There's an arms race between US/China in terms of tech at the moment, A.I and semiconductors are particularly of importance. Lots of poorer, emerging markets welcoming China's advance tech at the much lower price compared to US/EU options, but going way off topic.
 
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Deleted member 22630

Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,000
Hero of Legend said:
So Nvidia got ARM and now AMD gets Xilinx.

What does Xilinx make specifically? Any of the big three use them?
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Since you have to ask, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and yes they're the market leader so they're used by everyone.
en.wikipedia.org

Field-programmable gate array - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Nostremitus said:
FPGAs can be hardware coded for specific use cases and would perform those functions faster than a general purpose chip...


FPGA or GPU? - The evolution continues - Military Embedded Systems

A GE Intelligent Platforms perspective on embedded military electronics trends
militaryembedded.com militaryembedded.com

True hardware raytracing via FPGA (meaning the silicon IS the algorithm, not just hardware designed to run software algorithms better) implementation would be a game changer in terms of framerate times for finishing RT if designed well.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Since you mentioned it, performance-wise FPGAs got nothing on ASICs.
 
Sei

Sei

Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,710
LA
The FPGA market is hot, this is a good get.

I've worked with Xilinx boards before, they are used everywhere.

So this opens up multiple markets to them.
 
Onix555

Onix555

Member
Apr 23, 2019
3,381
UK
MarsipanRumpan said:
Congrats to everyone involved.

Also, this should shut everyone up that says "Sony can't spend $8B on acquisitions"
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Well technically AMD didn't spend $35 billion, they bought with stocks because they don't have the cash on hand for that sort of deal.
Sony could do the same, however it's an extremely risky business move, especially when Sony typically walks a thin line with their various hardware divisions.
And then there's the profitability question. AMD, Nvidia and Intel don't make these giant aquisitions to make money in the immediate, near or sometimes even far future; but to solidify their monopolies on the global computing industry.
 

Deleted member 22630

Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,000
Onix555 said:
Well technically AMD didn't spend $35 billion, they bought with stocks because they don't have the cash on hand for that sort of deal.
Sony could do the same, however it's an extremely risky business move, especially when Sony typically walks a thin line with their various hardware divisions.
And then there's the profitability question. AMD, Nvidia and Intel don't make these giant aquisitions to make money in the immediate, near or sometimes even far future; but to solidify their monopolies on the global computing industry.
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Yeah, this helps solidify AMD for HPC.
 
MrFox

MrFox

VFX Rendering Pipeline Developer
Verified
Jun 8, 2020
1,435
Xilinx are probably best known for their dominance in fpga (the spartan line is absolutely everywhere), but they also have an expertise in high end silicon, including 3D IC.

They make some crazy big chips with multiple slices of silicon on interposers.
 
Jakisthe

Jakisthe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,568
Of note: this was an all stock deal - ie, it wasn't paid out with cash - and will be immediately accretive to AMD, a relatively unusual combination.

Well played on their part (and yes it had been rumored for a bit).
 
kami_sama

kami_sama

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,001
MrFox said:
Xilinx are probably best known for their dominance in fpga (the spartan line is absolutely everywhere), but they also have an expertise in high end silicon, including 3D IC.

They make some crazy big chips with multiple slices of silicon on interposers.
Click to expand...
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And also extrememly expensive.
I've worked on FPGAs worth thousands of dollars, and it was only one part of the system.
 
Nostremitus

Nostremitus

Member
Nov 15, 2017
7,777
Alabama
MrFox said:
Xilinx are probably best known for their dominance in fpga (the spartan line is absolutely everywhere), but they also have an expertise in high end silicon, including 3D IC.

They make some crazy big chips with multiple slices of silicon on interposers.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
and some chonky AI cores

www.xilinx.com

Versal AI Core Series

www.xilinx.com www.xilinx.com

AI inference and wireless acceleration with integrated AI engines that deliver over 100X greater compute performance than today's server-class CPUs
 
dgrdsv

dgrdsv

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,866
This one is a great get for AMD for sure, they'll be a lot better equipped to take on non-x86 markets with Xilinx being their part now.
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,495
Xando said:
Lisa Su is just incredible. Stock is up 2400% since she took over
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I'm honestly surprised they survived without going bankrupt or being bought out. Rory Read brought them back from the brink, and when he headhunted Jim Keller back then I was so happy as I though there finally might be competition again. Didn't realise Lisa Su would end up just as important a hire, if not even more! Since she took over they seem to be going from strength to strength.

Plus of course AMD no longer has the cement boots that were the GlobalFoundry contracts. Hector Ruiz sure did a damn number on AMD, and then Dirk Meyer and the Bulldozer debacle, they were so close to being toast. If you told me 6 years ago that AMD would be in the postion for a 40B acquisition....
 
The Turbanator

The Turbanator

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,086
As a computer engineering student who just had a lecture the other day about a simple history of FPGAs, it's kinda weird to see the professor talk about 6 or 7 different producers when in reality now like 3 companies own all of them.
 
tuxfool

tuxfool

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,858
The Turbanator said:
As a computer engineering student who just had a lecture the other day about a simple history of FPGAs, it's kinda weird to see the professor talk about 6 or 7 different producers when in reality now like 3 companies own all of them.
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It's more than that, you have Altera/Intel, Xillinx/AMD, Lattice, Microsemi and then half a dozen smaller players that have FPGA fabric as part of their portfolios.

But this current market dynamic has been in place for quite a few years now.
 
Perfectsil

Perfectsil

Member
Nov 8, 2017
940
San Diego
Xilinx Is huge but little known to consumers because their top end FPGAs are 10000s to 100000s of dollars, not something your average consumers buy
 
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