ARM's acquisition nightmare

By _Chris Edwards

October 28, 2009

A few weeks ago, Sramana Mitra asked whether Intel might just buy ARM and have done with it. It's a supremely scary thought but one that's not beyond possibility. The purchase might raise antitrust issues and that's what a lot of ARM's customers would hope for. But the IP space is still reasonably fragmented.

Even though ARM's competitors in processor IP trail way behind, Intel could easily argue that their presence means that a purchase of ARM should be blocked. As long as MIPS Technologies stays afloat, Intel has a good argument. Plus you have Tensilica and Virage Logic, courtesy of the ARC buy, in the position to have a good poke at ARM's core market in handsets, particularly as ARM is pulling away from traditional DSP now that it's closing its Leuven centre - where the Optimode DSP technology was designed - and moving more aggressively into general-purpose and graphics processing.

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