Semiconductor Startup Acquisition in 2016

Not only large semiconductor companies merge ( Update: China 2015/2016 Semiconductor Mergers, Acquisitions), startups are also acquired. Cisco acquisition of  Leaba semiconductor (see below) would help Cisco to lock up the network through their own chips. 

This purchase is similar to Apple snapping up semiconductor companies several years ago to strengthen future growth while See September 2013 blog - How Apple Leverages its R&D

Ron

Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.

Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

Cisco to acquire Leaba Semiconductor for $320 million as buying spree continues

By Ron Miller on March 2, 2016

Cisco continued its buying spree today as it announced its intention to acquire Israeli chip designer Leaba Semiconductor for $320 million.Cisco sees this acquisition as a way to bolster its hardware catalog with highly advanced chip technology.

“By combining Leaba’s semiconductor expertise with the Cisco engineering team, we will accelerate our plans for Cisco’s next generation product portfolio and bring new capabilities to the market faster,” Rob Salvagno, head of Cisco’s M&A and venture investing team wrote in a blog post announcing the purchase.

When the deal closes, the Leaba team will report to Core Hardware Group, led by Cisco senior vice president, Ravi Cherukuri, according to the blog post.

The company actually doesn’t even have a shipping product yet, R Ray Wang, founder at Constellation Research told TechCrunch. “They haven’t even finished their prototype. This is an acqui-hire for next generation semi-conductor [technology]. Think networking at the chip level,” he said.

This is not the first time the Leaba founding team has launched and sold a cutting edge chip production company, according to report in Globes, an Israeli business publication. The founding team, which consists of CEO Eyal Dagan and CTO Ofer Eini sold Dune Networks to Broadcom for $178 million in 2009.

Today’s news comes just the day after the company announced it was buying CliQr, a cloud hybrid services management platform for $260 million and just about a month after it bought Jasper Technologies for $1.4 billion.

Cisco is walking a fine transformational line here. On one hand, the purchase pattern suggests that the company is trying to pivot from its networking hardware roots to a business centered around services as the CliQr and Jasper Technologies would suggest.

Much like IBM, Cisco is looking to the future and trying to use its cash hoard to make strategic purchases to help speed up that transition.

At the same time, it’s not quite ready to give up completely on its hardware roots and purchasing a leading-edge semiconductor company suggests that it is still looking to a future where it can continue to lead in the networking hardware space.

Intel: Installed Base Adv. for Tablets, Wibdow8 vs. Arm processor

A key benefit of legacy, installed base (see below). Ron http://m.computerworld.com/s/article/9227066/Intel_CEO_Otellini_calls_out_ARM_on_Windows_8_tablets Intel CEO Otellini calls out ARM on Windows 8 tablets Otellini says Intel chips are better at supporting legacy apps on Windows 8 By Agam Shah May 10, 2012 02:59 PM ET IDG News Service -Intel CEO Paul Otellini on Thursday said that the company has an advantage over its rival ARM on Windows 8 for tablets because of decades of developing x86 chips that support the Windows operating system. "We think it's a differentiator," said Otellini at the company's investor meeting in Santa Clara, California. "We have the advantage of the incumbency, the legacy support." Intel's only competitor in the Windows 8 tablet market is ARM, whose processors ship in most tablets today. ARM may have an entry point to the Windows tablet market, but faces a tough road ahead considering Intel's history with Windows, Otellini said. Windows grew up on x86 chips, but Microsoft is now also releasing Windows for the ARM architecture to make a dent into the tablet market. The upcoming Windows 8 OS will have a touch-based user interface and will come in three versions --Windows RT for ARM, and Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro for x86 chips. Intel plans to offer a new low-power Atom chip code-named Clover Trail, which will be released at the time of Windows 8 later this year. Otellini said PC makers are designing 20 Windows 8 tablets based on Intel chips. No ARM-based device makers have publicly announced Windows tablets, though Microsoft is working with ARM-based chip makers Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments to bring Windows 8 compatibility to tablets and PCs. Playing the application compatibility card, Otellini said tablets with Intel's upcoming chips will support older applications written for previous versions of Windows, which is important for CIOs. "There's going to be some compatibility issues for other architectures," Otellini said.ust by pressing one button on a tablet, users will be able to jump into legacy Windows mode for those who need an older user interface, Otellini said. The Windows 8 tablets on Intel chips provide a snappy response, Otellini said. Many application compatibility issues have been raised in the past. Intel last year claimed that legacy x86 applications would not work on Windows on ARM, a claim that was shot down by Microsoft. However, Microsoft later said that Windows on ARM would not be able to run or port existing x86 applications. Microsoft is trying to raise the appeal of Windows on ARM by bundling basic Office applications --collectively called Office 15 --with versions of Windows RT. Microsoft Office will not be included with Windows 8 or Windows 8 Pro. There are also hardware compatibility issues at stake. For example, older printers and cameras may not work with Windows on ARM devices as drivers are currently compatible only with x86 chips, and companies may be unwilling to rewrite drivers for ARM. Intel also hopes to bring tablet features such as touchscreens to its upcoming class of thin-and-light laptops called ultrabooks. Top PC makers expect to release ultrabooks based on Windows 8 in the future. ARM could not immediately respond when asked about Otellini's comments. Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com

Intel, AMD, or ARM Servers?

The article below about low-power servers doesn't mention Intel's large growth in database servers.  Intel had more than $10 billion in revenues from ICs sold into data centers, including servers, storage products, and networking.

Considering the high power usage by databases, it is not surprising that Intel wants to dominate the low-power servers market.  It is likely that databases and cloud servers  (20% of sales, 3x PC segment growth) added to Intel's growth in 2011.


Ron Maltiel

 

 

Intel to Face Off Against AMD, ARM with New Low-Power Server

http://forwardthinking.pcmag.com/servers/296555-intel-to-face-off-against-amd-arm-with-new-low-power-server

By Michael J. Miller

Intel may think extremely low-power servers are only a small part of the server market, but that isn't stopping the company from competing in this segment.

At its Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, the company said it will release a six-watt, dual-core processor known as Centerton, based on a dual-core Atom design, in the second half of this year.
Atom is Intel's low-power core design and the company has been pushing variants of it for everything from smartphones and tablets to set-top boxes and netbooks. Centerton will be a 32nm, dual-core system-on-chip (SoC) that will draw six watts of power. This will be a 64-bit chip with support for the large amounts of memory that many server applications require.

The microserver market is particularly interesting because of a theory that massive "scale out" deployments—typically large Web farms—would do better with a larger number of physical cores if those processors used much less power than traditional servers. SeaMicro was perhaps the biggest early advocate of this process, coming out with its SM10000 server using up to 512 Atom cores and its proprietary fabric for connecting multiple processors, along with the associated memory and input/output. Last year, it upped the ante by switching to 64-bit Atom N570s.

SeaMicro was acquired by AMD earlier this year, and the company is widely expected to start using that fabric with its own processors and offer the technology to its OEMs.

Meanwhile, a number of companies—notably Calxeda, with its EnergyCore ARM processor— have been talking about using multiple ARM-based cores to compete in the microserver market. The concept is good, and Calxeda says its processor can draw as little as 1.5 watts for a dual-core server, although it is 32-bit only. This, too, is expected to go into real production in the second half of this year.

ARM has announced a 64-bit architecture that many vendors are expected to embrace, but 64-bit ARM cores aren't expected to be available for volume production until 2014.

Intel also said it will be shipping a new version of its Xeon E3 processor based on the Ivy Bridge architecture, manufactured on a 22nm process using "tri-gate" transistors. These chips are aimed at slightly larger servers, usually a single socket 1 U rack or blade server that effectively is the equivalent of a high-end desktop. Currently, Intel offers 45- and 25-watt versions of the 32nm Sandy Bridge-based E3s, along with a 15-watt Pentium 350. It hasn't yet listed power requirements for the next generation E3s, but suggests the 22nm process will be more power efficient.

These should be competing more with AMD's recently announced Opteron 3200, which is meant to be a lower-power, low-price variant on the company's Opteron 4200 chip, based on the Bulldozer architecture. The four-core versions of these chips are rated at 45 watts.

Whether from Intel, AMD, or one of a variety of ARM providers, we're seeing more competition in the server market, particularly in the low-power segment. That's leading to lots of innovation and the potential for companies to save a lot on power bills.