AMD grabs Xilinx for $35 billion as chip industry consolidation continues

The chip industry consolidation dance continued this morning as AMD has entered into an agreement to buy Xilinx for $35 billion, giving the company access to a broad set of specialized workloads.

AMD sees this deal as combining two companies that complement each other’s strengths without cannibalizing its own markets. CEO Lisa Su believes the acquisition will help make her company the high performance chip leader.

“By combining our world-class engineering teams and deep domain expertise, we will create an industry leader with the vision, talent and scale to define the future of high performance computing,” Su said in a statement.

In an article earlier this year, TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington described Xilinx new satellite focused chips as offering a couple of industry firsts:

It’s the first 20nm process that’s rated for use in space, offering power and efficiency benefits, and it’s the first to offer specific support for high performance machine learning through neural network-based inference acceleration.

What’s more, the chips are designed to handle radiation and the rigors of launch, using a thick ceramic packaging.

In a call with analysts this morning, Su pointed to these kinds of specialized workloads as one of Xilinx’s strengths. “Xilinx has also built deep strategic partnerships across a diverse set of growing markets in 5G communications, data center, automotive, industrial, aerospace and defense. Xilinx is establishing themselves as a strategic technology partner to a broad set of industry leaders,” she said.

Xilinx launches a new reconfigurable space-grade chip optimized for local machine learning on orbit

The success of these kinds of mega deals tend to hinge on whether the combined companies can work well together. Su pointed out that the two companies have been partnering for a number of years and already have a relationship, and the two company leaders share a common vision.

“Both AMD and Xilinx share common culture, focused on innovation, execution and collaborating deeply with customers. From a leadership standpoint, Victor and I have a shared vision of where we can take high performance and adaptive computing in the future,” Su said.

In a nod to shareholders of both companies, she said, “This is truly a compelling combination that will create significant value for all stakeholders, including AMD and Xilinx shareholders who will benefit from the future growth and upside potential of the combined company.”

So far stockholders aren’t impressed with AMD stock down over 4% in pre-trading, while Xilinx stock is up over 11% in pre-trading. Xilinx has a market cap over $28 billion compared with AMD’s $96.5 billion, creating a massive combined company.

This deal comes on the heels of last month’s ARM acquisition by Nvidia for $40 billion. With two deals in less than two months totaling $75 million, the industry is looking at the bigger is better theory. Meanwhile Intel took a hit earlier this month after its earnings report showed weakness in its data center business.

While the deal has been approved by both company’s boards of directors, it still has to pass muster with shareholders and regulators, and is not expected to close until the end of next year.

When that happens Su will be chairman of the combined company, while Xilinx president and CEO, Victor Peng will join AMD as president, where he will be in charge of the Xilinx business and strategic growth initiatives.

It’s worth noting that the Wall Street Journal first reported that a deal between these two companies could be coming together earlier this month.