NXP snaps up Freescale to form new chipzilla

Dutch chip company NXP has snapped up US rival Freescale Semiconductor for $11.8bn (£7.7bn). The deal is expected to create a combined annual turnover of $10bn (£6.5bn), with NXP claiming the new entity will have a market valuation of $40bn (£26bn). NXP said it expects to make $200m (£130m) in the first full year after …

[Crazy Operations Guy]

"synergies"

Even I hate that word, and I have an MBA / lobotomy...

On another note: love their products, especially the good ol' LPC810M021FN8 (ARM Core in an 8-pin DIP Package)

[BillG]

Re: "synergies"

NXP has seen unexpected loss of sales since they lost focus on 8-bit microcontrollers. Despite what you may have read, those of us in the industry still see 8-bit MCU sales growing faster than 32-bit.

There is some doubt as to whether the FTC will approve this buyout.

[Edwin]

Re: "synergies"

There are a couple of industries where these two are a substantial part of the market, and not just digital IC.

I'd expect to see some divestments before the deal closes.

[Anonymous Coward]

So when are they closing the U.S. Fabs

Philips, which is now NXP closed its's fabs in the U.S. and moved to China. I expect them to do the same now.

[Herby]

Can they bring back 68k's

It would be a nice gesture. If they did multi-core 68k processors we could get rid of the chips from the "other chipzilla".

Yeah, I know wishful thinking (*SIGH*).

[Crazy Operations Guy]

Re: Can they bring back 68k's

If you want to kill Intel, you'd be much better off supporting something modern architecture. ARM is doing pretty well for itself, but you also have MIPS and Sparc. There's also IBM's Power architecture, if you're into that sort of thing. At the very least, go with the 68k's replacement: PowerPC, or the 88k. The 68k architecture was abandoned by Motorola over 20 years ago now.

[ChrisC]

Re: Can they bring back 68k's

"The 68k architecture was abandoned by Motorola over 20 years ago now."

Did someone forget to tell the Coldfire dev team?

[stizzleswick]

Re: Can they bring back 68k's

Actually, 68ks are still being manufactured in radiation-hardened form for space and nuclear-industry applications AFAIK. Development of the architecture has ceased a long time ago, though the Freescale Dragonball CPU borrowed heavily from the m68k.

[Gis Bun]

Freescale was part of Motorola up to about a dozen or so years ago, split off and then sold off.