Intel made $2bn+ takeover offer for RISC-V chip darling SiFive – report

Intel offered more than $2bn to acquire RISC-V chip designer SiFive, it was reported today. The approach by the x86 processor giant was among a number of takeover offers made to the semiconductor startup, according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed sources. It's said these discussions are in an early stage, no deal may ever …

[nautica]

Need a BETTER example of what happens when the bean-counters take over?

"...There is a concern Intel is interested in SiFive not because it wants to pivot away from x86, or offer an alternative architecture on an equal footing as x86, but because it wants to be an inconvenience for Nvidia..."

If Intel's strategy was to work as hard--as they used to--at being a 'pure engineering' house, as opposed to now being driven by bean-counters with their cutesy game-playing, 'one-upsmanship' methods of manufacturing semiconductors, perhaps it (Intel) could regain some of its rapidly-vanishing lustre.

Is there no one--who wields any real power--at Intel who remembers, and knows precisely, why Intel became such a dominant force in the semiconductor business?

[Binraider]

Is this a takeover to shut down the competition, or a takeover to take advantage of the IP and people... maybe both.

AMD get CMAed for trying to buy a flash memory outfit. Double standards, anyone?

[karlkarl]

Processors are becoming too important these days to let a single company own them all.

And because the "original" guys from the early days made so much money, it is very easy for them to keep on owning them all as part of a vicious cycle.

Annoyingly open-source can't really solve this because setting up a fab and producing hardware is very difficult for small communities. And then suffers from the "kickstarter problem" of the first batch scrapes through from the early adopters / fans but later batches don't generate enough interest to ever get made.

[Julz]

Don't worry. There will soon be a lot of Chinese and Indian produced processors to choose from.

[Anonymous Coward]

What Are Their Plans

Intel told that spending ARM+Leg would be a step up on ARM?