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by tromp 2859 days ago
How about Apple buying Via?
3 comments

Not possible from my understanding. The only reason Via has an x86 license is due to a successful settlement (forgot details of the case) with Intel in 2003[0] after acquiring assets from National Semiconductor and under the terms of the settlement got a 10yr license. That got extended to 15yrs and is due to expire this year last I heard.

Licenses to the x86 ISA can’t be bought or transferred via acquisition. Re: the other question someone asked about patent expiration, a patent expired version of the ISA is pretty worthless. Each new iteration gets new patents.

Update: [0] - a source for Via lawsuit: https://www.cnet.com/news/intel-via-bury-the-hatchet/

That would be the way to go, but why invest in x86 at the time where it mattered the least to Apple's bottom line?

ARM is the way to go.

Is there a reason RISC V is off the table?
As for right now, speed and features. Apple is already pretty invested in ARM and have the in-house experts. Managing and developing two processor architectures in parallel is a massive duplication of effort, just to avoid paying ARM a licens, a licens that Apple can easily afford.

In the long run, no there's no reason why Apple couldn't use RISC V in place of ARM, but not without a large upfront cost.

Apple actually has enough cash to buy Intel. Or AMD 10 times.
AMD's licenses from Intel have some strings attached. I think they basically cannot be bought while keeping the rights to x86. A bought AMD could possibly threaten to no longer grant licenses to Intel, but I'm sure Intel's lawyers have thought of that.

Apple buying Intel could work, I guess (anti-trust might get involved), but I don't think it would be a wise investment. Apple doesn't have the volume to keep Intel busy alone.

I don't think they'd do it either, or that they'd even need to. I just think it's kinda funny that Apple has enough cash to outright buy both Intel and AMD.
Apple doesnt need x86, almost nobody needs it anymore. Buy AMD, keep AMD64, throw away 32bit.
Apple could buy Intel for the tech, AMD just to close it. Then stop selling CPUs or licences altogether. Just ramp up selling Mac's. Then PC dies. :)
That's exactly the reason why anti-trust regulations exit.
Yup. It's not something that could realistically happen. But in truly free market it could.
If only! Think, if we lived in a genuine free market, what glories we could see. All hail the monocorp.