GlobalFoundries will Acquire IBM Chip Business

I haven't expected that. IBM is selling more and more.

 

Yeah... didn't see that coming. What is left of IBM then, if they sell their business including engineers and intellectual property? Their reserves of IBM t-shirts and stock of printer paper?

 

I guess this means AMD can be competitive with x86 again... in 2016

 

double post

 

Basically: they keep their research and developpement center, most of their intellectual propriety concerning semi-conductors, their server ( HPC ) buisness.

The difference is they will not anymore need to conduct their fabs and other material stuffs themselves but have Glofo who product the processors and globalize the appliccations of their research on production for them ..

Only Intel ( and Samsung ), are conduct their fabs themselves... And it seems to be a curse of time, even Intel is now wanting to product semi-conductors for other....

 

Hope this help nVidia to have 20nm for their Maxwell fabrication with profitable yields

 

So, they are becoming a company like ARM - bet on intellectual property, instead of fabrication?

 

Yup and they still do other hardware and have huge software and services divisions.

 

Not completely... In reality they will still product their Power line processors for server , but they will not FAB them in their Facility ( Its Glofo who will FAB them ).. its more like Nvidia and AMD who make product their chips on TSMC or Glofo if you want.

ARM just sell the design, they dont directly product ARM chips.

I absolutely dont see how this can be related in a way or the other to Nvidia.. Nvidia make product their chips in TSMC fabs since... well... since forever..

 

The funny thing is, IBM is paying Global Foundries to take it.

 

"This acquisition solidifies GLOBALFOUNDRIES' leadership position in semiconductor technology development "
when i last checked they where behind in every one of their process nodes, and in no way are they leader on process technology, and neither was ibm, i just love how arrogant these companies are always proclaiming to be the leader, while they are no where close to competing with intel's process technologies, also it remains to be seen but as much as i have heard their 14nm process will be closer to intel's 22nm than its 14nm one, so again how arrogant they are...

 

People hear a lot of noise, it is better to read and remember:
“Any time we talk about new nodes, we should wash our mouths out with soap,” said Scott Thompson, chief technologist of startup SuVolta and a former Intel fellow. Engineers ignore traditional metrics, saying “Intel’s 22-nm node is really 26 nm, so if Intel does new math, so will we,” he said.

Source: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1262887
But google will give you few thousands more.

If you consider only real metric for node comparison which is "power consumption per MHz per transistor" then you realize intel does not have real 22nm and their processors being faster than AMD is not some node magic, they have smarter uArch therefore higher IPC.

To the topic: IBM has 4 times more employees than intel, it is very heavy ship.
And it takes some time and effort to change direction. And IBM did it several times in past. And that is what is going on again now.

As far as GloFo is concerned:
- TSMC was quite more active in last 2 years on patent side
- but GloFo has made progress where it matters for future
http://stks.freshpatents.com/Global-Foundries-nm1.php?archive=2014

And everyone should remember that node does not matter that much, what matters is getting things together well.
- proper power gating
- way interposer is managed to combine differently manufactured silicons
- level of integration of system components

 

Thanks for the info, didn't know that their R&D wasn't meant by selling IP and engineers, got that wrong there.