Intel could soon announce a nearly $6 billion acquisition that would give its new foundry business a boost, according to Wall Street Journal. The chip giant is close to closing a deal to buy Israeli chip company Tower Semiconductor, and that could be announced sometime this week unless negotiations suddenly collapse.
Tower, which has a market value of about $3.6 billion, makes a variety of chips for customers in all industries, including automakers and medical and industrial equipment manufacturers. Your site show which has seven manufacturing facilities located in Israel, Italy, the United States and Japan, producing 6-inch, 8-inch and 12-inch chips. Tom’s Hardware says the manufacturing processes it uses aren’t cutting edge, but the chips it makes don’t need the latest technologies. The tower just needs to reliably and regularly generate large volumes of chips.
Before the Tower, Intel was reported be in talks to buy the much larger chipmaker and AMD subsidiary GlobalFoundries for about $30 billion. However, it did not go ahead, and GlobalFoundries chose to pursue an initial public offering.
Intel launched its foundry services in 2021, when it committed $20 billion to build two factories in Arizona and explained that it will be run as its own business unit. Earlier this year, the company also revealed its plans to build a massive semiconductor facility in Ohio, which it hopes will become “the largest silicon manufacturing site on the planet.” It will use the complex’s factories to manufacture its chips and chips for customers under its foundry services.
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