{"id":7394,"date":"2022-01-27T19:12:29","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T19:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/27\/china-conditionally-approves-amds-proposed-35b-purchase-of-xilinx\/"},"modified":"2022-01-27T19:12:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T19:12:29","slug":"china-conditionally-approves-amds-proposed-35b-purchase-of-xilinx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/27\/china-conditionally-approves-amds-proposed-35b-purchase-of-xilinx\/","title":{"rendered":"China conditionally approves AMD\u2019s proposed $35B purchase of Xilinx"},"content":{"rendered":"

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China\u2019s State Administration for Market Regulation has conditionally approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc.\u2019s proposed $35 billion acquisition of Xilinx Inc., Reuters <\/span>reported<\/span><\/a> today.<\/span><\/p>\n

San Jose, California-based Xilinx is a leading provider of field-programmable gate array, or FPGA, processors. FGPAs are a type of versatile processor that can be customized to perform many different computing tasks. Xilinx\u2019s FPGAs power a variety of devices ranging from data center servers to smart cars.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The State Administration for Market Regulation approved AMD\u2019s acquisition of Xilinx on condition that the company meets a number of requirements. AMD is required to \u201cnot discriminate against Chinese clients and to continue supplying Xilinx\u2019s products to the country,\u201d Bloomberg <\/span>reported<\/span><\/a>. According to Reuters<\/a>, AMD must also ensure that Xilinx FPGAs\u2019 \u201cdevelopment methods are compatible with Arm-based processors.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another condition is that AMD maintain the \u201cflexibility and programmability of Xilinx FPGAs.\u201d Moreover, the company must not \u201cforce tie-in sales of products or discriminate against customers that buy one set of products but not another,\u201d Reuters reported.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most processors, such as central processing units, are comprised of circuits designed for a specific set of tasks. A company that purchases a processor usually can\u2019t modify what tasks the chip\u2019s individual circuits are capable of performing, or only to a limited extent. FPGAs, in contrast, have customizable circuits called logic blocks that companies can customize for a variety of different tasks.<\/span><\/p>\n

FPGAs\u2019 customizability allows them to provide higher performance than a CPU in many cases. A company could, for example, purchase an FPGA chip and modify its logic blocks with optimizations that speed up machine learning calculations. The chip would then be capable of running machine learning applications faster than most CPUs, which usually feature only a limited number of circuits optimized for artificial intelligence use cases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, companies can optimize their FGPAs for other tasks, such as processing network traffic or performing data analytics. Xilinx\u2019s silicon is also popular among fellow semiconductor firms, which use its FGPAs to prototype the features of new processors before launching them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Acquiring Xilinx will enable AMD to expand its presence in the lucrative data center processor market. Xilinx\u2019s FGPA can be found in a wide variety of data enter systems, from servers to storage equipment and network devices. Moreover, the company\u2019s chips are <\/span>used<\/span><\/a> by Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to power some of their <\/span>cloud instances<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Xilinx <\/span>reported<\/span><\/a> Wednesday that revenue from its data center business jumped an impressive 81% last quarter on a year-over-year basis. The company attributed the sales increase to strong demand from companies using its chips to build compute and networking systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

Demand from data center customers helped increase Xilinx\u2019s revenue to a record $1.01 billion last quarter. The company\u2019s revenue growth was also supported by the momentum of its adaptive system-on-chip business. The business provides processors that combine customizable FPGA components with other types of silicon in a single module. Adaptive SoC revenues increased 30% year-over-year last quarter, Xilinx said, and now account for 28% of its total revenue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

AMD expects to close the long-awaited acquisition of Xilinx in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0AMD<\/h5>\n
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