5 ms·

Intel can just buy back their startup in three years if it worked and they need it. Probably cheaper than trying to develop whatever in-house and with better ch

Intel can just buy back their startup in three years if it worked and they need it. Probably cheaper than trying to develop whatever in-house and with better chance of success.

znpy 2y ago
If the startup is successful it won’t be cheap to buy
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Unless the company stumbles upon some revolutionary novel computation approach (eg 10x more efficient) it seems a long road for a chip designer to become a financial success. Even if it could buy a RISC chip today that was magically 20% better than Intel, who is going to buy it for serious commercial installations? It has taken years since Zen1 before AMD started to gain real presence in servers and laptops.
  - sitkack 2y ago
    RISCV chips that are way slower than Intel that are already being used in serious (?) commercial installations [that was a lot of words].
    - astrange 2y ago
      The ISA doesn't matter that much for performance at the high end. The most important difference between ISAs is security. ARMv9 is the best here (several well designed security extensions) and x86 might be the worst (part because of variable length instructions and part because Intel can't ship SGX.) I don't know about RISCV in particular.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    How long did it take Apple to make their ARM-based CPUs that totally outperform Intel CPUs in laptops? This group could very well do the same. The main problem, of course, is x86 compatibility, since most laptop users run Windows and not Linux and Windows only works on x86. They might be targeting a different market where x86 compatibility isn't important but power efficiency (or maybe some other metric that x86 sucks at) is: non-Windows mobile devices of some kind, for instance. I do really wonder what their business strategy is here.
    - jorvi 2y ago
      It took Apple ten years. Apple A4 was released in 2010, M1 in 2020.
      - unnah 2y ago
        Apple bought P.A. Semi in 2008 and put them to work on ARM cores right away. On the other hand, there were noises about the A-series being faster than x86 already at the time of Apple A13 in 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi
        astrange 2y ago
        The goal of the A/M series chips isn't to be faster than x86, it's to have a better power/performance tradeoff. Going as fast as possible gets you "gamer laptops", which weren't good products. Of course they are fast, which is part a nice coincidence, and part Intel falling badly behind TSMC.
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        From what I've read, the Apple M chips aren't faster than the very fastest Intel offerings. But it doesn't matter: what matters is how long your laptop will run on battery doing typical laptop work, and the M chips really put the x86 chips to shame here unfortunately. So agreed, what they're great at is power/performance tradeoff.
- BeetleB 2y ago
  Hardware companies grow exponentially slower than SW companies. Given Intel spent (wasted?) over $10B each on Altera and Mobileye, I'm sure they'll be able to afford whatever this will be valued at. Of course, the real question is whether it'll be Intel that buys them or one of Intel's competitors.
  - surfingdino 2y ago
    nVidia?
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    >Hardware companies grow exponentially slower than SW companies Meh. That's only because that market is irrational and many SW companies are massively overhyped and overvalued. You can't possibly tell me with a straight face that WhatsApp is worth the 19 billion Facebook spent on it especially given WhatsApp is not making any money.
    - lotsofpulp 2y ago
      WhatsApp was a very smart buy for $19B considering its ubiquity around the world. There are countries where business basically does not happen unless you are using WhatsApp. Also, Meta surely gleans tons of data from WhatsApp that they can use to better sell advertisements, even on other Meta properties.
      - Rinzler89 2y ago
        But there are no ads in WhatsApp, how do they make money from those using it?
        lotsofpulp 2y ago
        https://business.whatsapp.com/resources/resource-library/whatsapp-business-platform-resources/ultimate-guide-to-the-whatsapp-business-platform https://business.whatsapp.com/resources/resource-library/wha... https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.8562-6/454446299_1500388867536945_5578819804663964843_n.pdf?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=e280be&_nc_ohc=amULx3AuFcUQ7kNvgECDcQf&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&oh=00_AYAL5yfxkU4VtVAFHR59MBZwAdH6jEc3WOmw7BUPIVfAsg&oe=66D21D7C https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.8562-6/454446299_... Given Meta’s net income trajectory and the very, very widespread usage of WhatsApp, it should be safe to assume that WhatsApp is a valuable asset. If not explicitly making money, at the least it is not in a competitor’s hands, which itself is surely worth billions of dollars to Meta. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platforms/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platform...
- gary_0 2y ago
  In fact, Intel already tried and failed to buy SiFive for $2B. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-failed-to-buy-sifive https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-failed-to-buy-sifive
oldpersonintx 2y ago
[dead]
snvzz 2y ago
They'll be laughed out of the room. As happened when they tried this with SiFive.

Intel can just buy back their startup in three years if it worked and they need it. Probably cheaper than trying to develop whatever in-house and with better chance of success.

znpy 2y ago

If the startup is successful it won’t be cheap to buy

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Unless the company stumbles upon some revolutionary novel computation approach (eg 10x more efficient) it seems a long road for a chip designer to become a financial success. Even if it could buy a RISC chip today that was magically 20% better than Intel, who is going to buy it for serious commercial installations? It has taken years since Zen1 before AMD started to gain real presence in servers and laptops.
- sitkack 2y ago
  RISCV chips that are way slower than Intel that are already being used in serious (?) commercial installations [that was a lot of words].
  - astrange 2y ago
    The ISA doesn't matter that much for performance at the high end. The most important difference between ISAs is security. ARMv9 is the best here (several well designed security extensions) and x86 might be the worst (part because of variable length instructions and part because Intel can't ship SGX.) I don't know about RISCV in particular.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  How long did it take Apple to make their ARM-based CPUs that totally outperform Intel CPUs in laptops? This group could very well do the same. The main problem, of course, is x86 compatibility, since most laptop users run Windows and not Linux and Windows only works on x86. They might be targeting a different market where x86 compatibility isn't important but power efficiency (or maybe some other metric that x86 sucks at) is: non-Windows mobile devices of some kind, for instance. I do really wonder what their business strategy is here.
  - jorvi 2y ago
    It took Apple ten years. Apple A4 was released in 2010, M1 in 2020.
    - unnah 2y ago
      Apple bought P.A. Semi in 2008 and put them to work on ARM cores right away. On the other hand, there were noises about the A-series being faster than x86 already at the time of Apple A13 in 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi
      - astrange 2y ago
        The goal of the A/M series chips isn't to be faster than x86, it's to have a better power/performance tradeoff. Going as fast as possible gets you "gamer laptops", which weren't good products. Of course they are fast, which is part a nice coincidence, and part Intel falling badly behind TSMC.
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        From what I've read, the Apple M chips aren't faster than the very fastest Intel offerings. But it doesn't matter: what matters is how long your laptop will run on battery doing typical laptop work, and the M chips really put the x86 chips to shame here unfortunately. So agreed, what they're great at is power/performance tradeoff.
BeetleB 2y ago
Hardware companies grow exponentially slower than SW companies. Given Intel spent (wasted?) over $10B each on Altera and Mobileye, I'm sure they'll be able to afford whatever this will be valued at. Of course, the real question is whether it'll be Intel that buys them or one of Intel's competitors.
- surfingdino 2y ago
  nVidia?
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >Hardware companies grow exponentially slower than SW companies Meh. That's only because that market is irrational and many SW companies are massively overhyped and overvalued. You can't possibly tell me with a straight face that WhatsApp is worth the 19 billion Facebook spent on it especially given WhatsApp is not making any money.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    WhatsApp was a very smart buy for $19B considering its ubiquity around the world. There are countries where business basically does not happen unless you are using WhatsApp. Also, Meta surely gleans tons of data from WhatsApp that they can use to better sell advertisements, even on other Meta properties.
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      But there are no ads in WhatsApp, how do they make money from those using it?
      - lotsofpulp 2y ago
        https://business.whatsapp.com/resources/resource-library/whatsapp-business-platform-resources/ultimate-guide-to-the-whatsapp-business-platform https://business.whatsapp.com/resources/resource-library/wha... https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.8562-6/454446299_1500388867536945_5578819804663964843_n.pdf?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=e280be&_nc_ohc=amULx3AuFcUQ7kNvgECDcQf&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&oh=00_AYAL5yfxkU4VtVAFHR59MBZwAdH6jEc3WOmw7BUPIVfAsg&oe=66D21D7C https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.8562-6/454446299_... Given Meta’s net income trajectory and the very, very widespread usage of WhatsApp, it should be safe to assume that WhatsApp is a valuable asset. If not explicitly making money, at the least it is not in a competitor’s hands, which itself is surely worth billions of dollars to Meta. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platforms/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platform...
gary_0 2y ago
In fact, Intel already tried and failed to buy SiFive for $2B. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-failed-to-buy-sifive https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-failed-to-buy-sifive

oldpersonintx 2y ago

[dead]

snvzz 2y ago

They'll be laughed out of the room. As happened when they tried this with SiFive.