英特尔收购Mindspeed无线业务，Atom处理器或加入基带

关键字：英特尔收购 Mindspeed无线业务 英特尔基带

为了与高通和以色列科技公司Mellanox在移动设备和数据中心市场展开正面竞争，英特尔日前宣布将收购网络基础设施芯片厂商Mindspeed公司的无线基础业务。

此举有助于提升英特尔产品处理数据中心任务以及通过无线网络将数据传播至移动设备的能力。英特尔通讯和存储架构集团副总裁兼总经理罗斯·斯库勒表示，“通过此次收购，英特尔将在信息处理技术和IP基站技术领域，获得一支拥有丰富经验的无线基础设施团队。”

据悉，Mindspeed是一家移动基站硬件公司，其生产的低功耗芯片系统产品有利于光纤、3G和LTE网络上的视频、语音和数据应用传输。通过收购Mindspeed的无线业务，英特尔产品的处理数据能力将获得提升，并且无线网络传输能力也有望增强。

在上个月，M/A-Com公司以每股5.05美元、大约2.72亿美元价格收购了Mindspeed公司。据悉，将无线业务出售给英特尔公司，是当时M/A-Com收购Mindspeed公司协议的一部分。Mindspeed的CEO拉乌夫·Y·哈利姆（Raouf Y. Halim）表示，“对于我们的无线业务加入到英特尔，我们感到非常兴奋。”

据了解，英特尔一直希望进军数据中心和无线技术领域，此前，其曾以14亿美元的价格收购了Infineon的无线业务，从而具备了开发通信芯片的能力。目前，英特尔正在向手机厂商提供3G和LTE调制解调器，此外，其还计划在凌动芯片中整合调制解调器。

收购条款以及何时完成收购尚未公开。

Mindspeed Boosts Intel Baseband Play

Zewde Yeraswork

NEW YORK — Intel has acquired Mindspeed's wireless division, which designs chips for cellular basestations including an emerging class of small-cell basestations.

On November 5, Mindspeed closed a deal to be acquired by wireless specialist Macom for $272 million just as it was entering negotiations to sell its wireless business to Intel. Mindspeed previously announced that if its wireless business was not acquired, it would be restructured and wound down. Intel declined to comment on the purchase price.

Rose Schooler, vice president and general manager of Intel's communications and storage group, said in an interview with EE Times that it had been a long journey for Intel to acquire Mindspeed.

Schooler said the deal would help Intel support baseband processing, including turbo N Code and Z Code functions. "It has been a decade-long journey [to support all comms workloads] and this acquisition is one of the final building blocks,” she said.

Stephen Price, general manager of Intel's comms division, also spoke to EE Times regarding the acquisition. "It comes with the product line, the access, the people and the know-how."

The deal also boosts Intel's abilities in the emerging area of cloud radio access networks where x86 servers run a larger part of the baseband processing, he told us. C-RAN will make it more efficient to administer and manage the network.

Intel is collaborating on C-RAN pilots in China and South Korea. “We’ve had our customers' equipment manufacturers say they have nine architectures to juggle,” Schooler said. “This simplifies their tool environment.”

Price says the acquisition targets an entire product line of technology. “Where we’re going with that is everything from the datacenter to the phone must be a very intelligent architecture.”

Asked why Intel targeted Mindspeed specifically, Schooler pointed to its very “prominent” position in the small-cell market. “It has generations of products that have already been taken to market. They have competency in both silicon and software that we think will be very valuable to continuing our strategy of building out our portfolio across all network markets.”

Price said Mindspeed has a very good technology in the small-cell market, which, coupled with Intel technology, can span from the core of the network all the way back to the handset.

Schooler called Mindspeed’s wireless division a tremendous opportunity for growth. “One of the key gaps we wanted to close was in the area of wireless access, and that’s what this acquisition allows us to do.”

Schooler was frank that, so far, Intel has a “negligible share” of the overall wireless access market.

The acquisition is as much a result of Mindspeed’s motivation to sell itself as Intel’s motivation to acquire part of Mindspeed, said Will Strauss, principal of market watcher Forward Concepts of Mesa, Ariz. Mindspeed "had quite frankly better fortunes in the wired market than in the wireless market,” Strauss said.

Mindspeed is a market leader in picocells and femtocells, but it probably wasn’t profitable in either market, he said. It was headed into macro-cell and basestation chips but had not launched products.

“Mindspeed has been in the picocell or the small-cell basestation business, but they have not been in the [mainstream] cellphone base stations that AT&T or Verizon would buy,” Strauss told us. ”Admittedly their aim was to get there, but it probably required more financial muscle than Mindspeed had to do it.”

Amid a slowing core market for PCs, "Intel is desperate to find new ways to expand its wireless market opportunities [and] there are rumors that it’s looking for more acquisitions, too,” Strauss said, citing a Wall Street analyst who recently speculated that Broadcom is Intel’s next target.

Mindspeed's picocell products are unique in supporting China's TD-SCDMA standard, Strauss said. "The China market is the fastest growing and the biggest market for cellular anything right now."

Asked about the potential impact of Intel’s entry in the infrastructure communications business, Strauss reiterated that Mindspeed’s immediate competitors in picocell and femtocell chips will be the first to feel Intel’s presence in that space. But macro basestations are a larger market than picocells today.

“In that chip market they would be going up against TI and Freescale and even Hi-Silicon in China, which has their own ARM chip.”

In spite of the significant competition, Intel has made its mark and continues to reveal its intentions in this market, he said. “Intel continues to bulk up in wireless. They are really serious this time. They tried this years ago, and they had gotten out of it, but now they’re on an upward path,” said Strauss.