Figure: Figure worm
Source: 21tech
Author: Luo Yiqi
Editor: Zhang Weixian
With the official completion of a super-large-scale merger and acquisition of more than 300 billion yuan in the semiconductor industry, the dispute over high-performance computing has entered the deep water area.
On February 14, local time in the United States, AMD officially announced the completion of the acquisition of Xilinx. Since then, Xilinx's official website has also been replaced by AMD's relevant logo and financial report information, and Xilinx has become a part of AMD, which said that it will jointly promote the development and exploration of high-performance and adaptive computing.
The Xilinx website has completed the relevant changes
"An era is over" is the evaluation of many people in the semiconductor industry. Previously, Xilinx was in the top position of independent FPGA (field programmable gate array) companies for many years, with the second place Altera was acquired by AMD's old rival Intel (Intel), after this acquisition, the two FPGA companies in the head have become subsidiaries of computing chip manufacturers, and the integration competition is highlighted.
Just one trading day before the completion of the acquisition, when the US stock technology stocks fell due to external factors, the market due to the consideration of AMD's acquisition of Xilinx did not cost any cash, but adopted the form of an all-stock transaction, and the sell-off sentiment that may occur after the stock exchange, resulting in AMD's stock price falling by 10% on the day, becoming the leader among the chip leading companies.
However, after the completion of the official acquisition, AMD's stock price rose again, showing that the market is optimistic about the company's development under the future industry competition situation.
In the previous years of development, due to the difference in the background and development route of the founder, Intel has always been in the leading position of CPU innovation, coupled with the leading position of Nvidia in the GPU field, AMD has been crowned as the "second oldest". Under the leadership of the current CEO Su Zifeng, AMD has emerged in recent years. With the acquisition of FPGA first in the industry, whether AMD's future CPU+GPU+FPGA integration road can get rid of this title has attracted much attention.
But at the same time, it is worth noting that analysts told reporters that Intel's previous acquisition of Altera has not been able to reflect the relevant benefits in the financial report for a long time, which means that after the acquisition, it will still go through a process of continuous running-in.
Sprint for high-performance computing
Although the same from Fairchild Semiconductor, the founder of Intel is from research and development, and the founder of AMD is from sales, which lays the early stage, and there is a certain difference in the development route between the two.
This led to a certain technical constraint on AMD in the early years, and after completing the "litigation of the century" with Intel for many years, it increased its investment in research and development. But then it faced financial bleeding problems with the acquisition of ATI.
These backgrounds make AMD's development in the CPU field always in the shadow of Intel, and the acquisition of ATI has also allowed AMD to have more NVIDIA, a gradually growing opponent in the GPU field, but AMD is also the route of CPU + GPU coordinated development, and continues to occupy market share.
AMD's official website officially announced that the acquisition of Xilinx has been completed
Speaking of FPGAs, Xilinx, which was acquired by AMD, has long occupied 50% of the market, and Altera, which was acquired by Intel in 2015, has occupied about 30%.
FPGAs are important to the current era of intelligent computing because they are flexibly configurable. Some chip design industry insiders introduced to reporters that after the use of FPGAs, even if chip products have been manufactured, they can still be reprogrammed or upgraded.
In recent years, Xilinx has also sought new market development space, and data centers are a market with high hopes. Previously, Victor Peng, then president and CEO of Xilinx, responded to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that although the contribution of the data center business to the company's revenue is very limited, "but to see that its growth is much faster than the general business, it will become a very important part of revenue in the future." ”
Xilinx's fiscal 2022 Q3 financial report released before the acquisition showed that the data center segment accounted for 11% of the company's revenue, and its share increased steadily every quarter, with an annual growth rate of 81%.
Xilinx's fiscal 2022 financial report shows the performance contribution and growth rate brought by different business segments
To some extent, the development of FPGAs themselves has also entered a new divide. Some chip observers told reporters that the market demand for pure FPGA chips has been declining, and in the future, its embedded heterogeneous solutions integrated with CPUs, DSPs and other integration will become the mainstream of the market, which will be beneficial to the development of data centers, 5G, AI and other fields.
This is also reflected in AMD's acquisition blueprint, which introduced that Xilinx's leading FPGAs, adaptive SoCs, artificial intelligence engines and software expertise will empower AMD, bringing a superior portfolio of high-performance and adaptive computing solutions. And by 2023, it will occupy a larger share of the competition in the cloud computing, edge computing, and smart device markets of about $135 billion.
AMD also mentioned the technical and financial support that the acquisition of Xilinx will bring to the company.
In terms of technology, IT will strengthen AMD's capabilities in chip stacking, chip packaging, Chiplet, etc., as well as provide a better software platform for AI and special architectures.
On the financial side, xilinx's long-cycle, high-margin market products, its 67% gross margin performance will also optimize AMD's financial model. The deal is expected to deliver benefits to AMD in terms of profit margins, cash flow, and more in its first year.
AMD explained that the acquisition of Xilinx will bring four major benefits
Technology convergence will take time
Some industry insiders lamented that after being acquired, the company name of the small giant in the subdivision of "Xilinx" may be more replaced by "AMD".
After the acquisition, former Xilinx CEO Victor Peng will serve as president of the newly formed Adaptive and Embedded Computing Division (AECG), which will remain focused on driving FPGAs, adaptive SoCs and software roadmaps.
On the same day, AMD also announced a new board appointment. Su Zifeng will add to his previous positions as president and CEO to the chairman of the board; former Xilinx directors Jon Olson and Elizabeth Vanderslice will join AMD's board of directors, the former being Xilinx's CFO, and the latter having investment banking and acquisition experience.
Although the amount looks huge, AMD's acquisition has precedents.
In 2015, the old rival Intel announced the acquisition of the second in the industry of FPGA, Altera, opening the CPU + FPGA development model, and AMD acquired the first company in the FPGA industry share as a "second in ten thousand years". In this way, the situation of further fighting between the two has become clear.
Of course, it is still unknown how AMD's CPU + GPU + FPGA fusion competition will result.
After all, although Intel has already completed the acquisition of Altera, since then, the proceeds of this action have not quickly shown a multiplier effect in the financial report.
The reporter's inquiry found that intel completed the acquisition of Altera in 2015, and in 2016, the related business revenue began to appear in the company's financial report with the PSG (Programmable Solutions Group Programmable Solutions Group) business line, which accounted for 3% of the total revenue at that time.
Intel added a new FPGA segment in 2016, the PSG segment
In the recently released 2021 Intel financial report, the company's PSG business segment revenue was $1.9 billion, up 4% year-on-year, while the company's total revenue was $79 billion that year, and the proportion of related revenue did not exceed 3%. This seems to show that the FPGA-related business revenue has not brought a significant increase to the company's related contribution.
Intel's performance contribution in different business units in fiscal 2021 is low, and the proportion of PSG is low
In this regard, analysts told reporters, "FPGA technical barriers are high, cross-domain mergers and acquisitions require a long period of digestion by both parties, and more need the close cooperation and improvement of the ecosystem, partner channels, and customer groups." ”
However, according to Su Zifeng, in 2023, the industry will see the first AMD processor using Xilinx AI IP.
epilogue
The industry believes that the tug-of-war between Intel and AMD in the past few decades has also ushered in rapid iteration and prosperity in the CPU processor market, while promoting the rapid growth of the PC market and related suppliers, so that PCs can enter the consumer market at lower prices.
In the post-Moore's law era, Intel ushered in a new CEO and continued to increase its investment layout in the IDM business, while actively entering the RISC-V architecture, with the two old rivals competing for the high-end chip market with CPU + FPGA, fierce competition will continue to land in more fields.
Editor: Lu Taoran