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Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

Before people jump onto talking about partisan politics, the big issue driving this right now is the fact that Intel is mulling splitting their foundary business from their chip design business and selling both off to outside parties [0]

The Intel fabs in Ohio were at the early stages, and would be a significant capex hit that could scuttle any M&A opportunities in the pipeline.

[0] - https://www.wsj.com/tech/broadcom-tsmc-eye-possible-intel-de...

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> Before people jump onto talking about partisan politics

The current administration has gutted the CHIPS act staff and is unpredictably changing the terms of the deals.

It’s not “partisan politics” to point out the simple facts about what the current administration is doing.

I would just like to say that Broadcom owning Intel's chip design business and TSMC owning Intel's factories would be a horrendous outcome for the industry.

From a consolidation aspect absolutely, but from an IP aspect it would be indifferent. You're most likely using Broadcom designed chips already if you're using any 4G and above cell phone.

I think another problem is that Broadcom is even more poorly managed than Intel and I think that matters a lot when it comes to M&A.

We can look at VMWare as a direct example.

It’s like when you see a company sold to Oracle or IBM you know it’s not going to be better than the status quo.

Pretty sure my cellular modem is made by Qualcomm.

> I think another problem is that Broadcom is even more poorly managed than Intel

> We can look at VMWare as a direct example

What do you mean by that?

VMWare has legitimately been ill managed for years now, and absolutely needed the chainsaw treatment. They had too many SKUs and their AEs gave ridiculously discounted quotes to make quota.

There's a reason Apple uses Broadcom for cellular modems.

Broadcom took over VMWare and pissed customers off by raising prices and focusing on upselling:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/03/broad...

Apple uses Qualcomm modems, not broadcom, and now makes its own modems starting with the iPhone 16e. Broadcom is mostly used for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

https://9to5mac.com/2025/02/19/apple-reveals-c1-its-first-in...

I have some serious doubts about these rumours. TSMC wants to buy Intel's fab why, exactly? Even assuming it isn't shut down for antitrust reasons, what are they gaining? A fab that is struggling to compete with the ones they already have? Lithography equipment they can just buy from ASML or whomever?

Not to mention the fact that the rumours themselves caused a rally in INTC price that makes acquisition far less attractive.

> TSMC wants to buy Intel's fab why, exactly?

Probably due to US coercion: https://techsoda.substack.com/p/tsmc-faces-tough-choices-ami...

The US wants Taiwan to transfer even more technology to the US (thus actively undermining Taiwan's Silicon Shield defence strategy) and also revitalise Intel's operations under pain of 100% tariffs, which Trump has repeatedly threatened.

> Before people jump onto talking about partisan politics

It is not "partisan" politics, it is money politics. No money, no fab. Intel cannot commit to anything with a fluctuating future that changes each minute.

Exclusive: Trump prepares to change US CHIPS Act conditions, sources say https://www.reuters.com/technology/trump-prepares-change-us-...

No buyer will be prepared to buy a BU that has an additional $28B liability on the books.

It would make it completely untenable for any buyer to acquire the Foundry BU.

> Four sources with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters that the White House is concerned about many of the terms underpinning the $39 billion Chips and Science Act industry subsidies.

> Those encompass additional clauses, including requirements added into contracts by the administration of President Joe Biden, including that recipients must use unionized labor to build factories and help provide affordable childcare for factory workers.

Still sounds very megacorp friendly

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