AMD closes record chip industry deal with about $50-bln purchase of Xilinx

Semiconductor designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)(AMD.O) said on Monday it has finalized the purchase of Xilinx Inc (XLNX.O) in a record chip industry deal valued at about $50 billion.

The closing of the deal comes on the heels of Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) abandoning its plans to buy SoftBank-owned (9984.T) Arm Ltd, citing regulatory hurdles.

AMD’s transaction moved ahead with all necessary approvals for the acquisition, it said.

The deal, announced in October 2020, was originally valued at $35 billion, but the rise of AMD stock has pushed up the price tag, according to AMD.

The purchase of Xilinx helps AMD “capture a larger share of the approximately $135 billion market opportunity we see across cloud, edge and intelligent devices,” said AMD CEO Lisa Su in a statement.

The transaction comes as AMD intensifies its battle with Intel Corp in the data center chip market. The combined company will have over 15,000 engineers and a completely outsourced manufacturing strategy that relies heavily on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) .

The two US companies have benefited from a more nimble approach to grabbing market share from Intel, which has struggled with internal manufacturing.

AMD has long been Intel’s chief rival for central processor units (CPUs) in the personal computer business.

AMD’s Su will lead the combined company as chief executive, with Xilinx’s CEO Victor Peng as president of the newly formed Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group.

The companies expect the deal to generate $300 million in cost savings.