The first of the two arguments was made by the DigiTimes website and is supposed to come from industrial sources. In short, he claims that Intel will not buy GlobalFoundries, because Intel needs state-of-the-art technology for its projects, while GlobalFoundries is already focusing more on so-called mature technologies. So GlobalFoundries should not bring Intel what it needs.
The basis of the argument is fine, but given the other context, it does not seem very good. Intel needs production capacity and more factories are needed to achieve it. He doesn’t have you. He can build them or he can buy them. If they buy them, it can be significantly faster and in some ways easier. That these factories are not equipped with a newer process, but may not be a problem. Intel is developing and must develop it, regardless of whether it buys or builds factories. Once it develops, it doesn’t matter if it is deployed in two, three or four factories, this is a parallel operation. It is true that it would be more advantageous for Intel to buy a factory that produces on a 7nm and 5nm process, but such are not available, so the argument that GlobalFoundries ends up in a 12nm process is not an argument in this context to prove that the acquisition will not happen.
A slightly more interesting argument was made by The Street analyst Jim Cramer. He is convinced that the acquisition will be swept off the table by US antitrust authorities, namely the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Cramer mentions that President Biden’s administration is also heavily antitrust and it is enough to talk to the antitrust lawyer about the situation and it will be clear to everyone that such an acquisition cannot pass.
This argument seems more serious. As mentioned in a previous article, if Intel acquired GlobalFoundries capabilities, it would become one of the two largest manufacturers of silicon logic in the world (after TSMC), which would mean that the most advanced manufacturing technologies would be in the hands of the two largest manufacturers.
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