[Wytwwww]

Why would less competition and more market concentration be good for the US semiconductor industry?

It's not like Qualcomm has been the most innovative company ever, they make ARM/Cortex based chips (which is almost a commodity) and control the baseband/modem market because of their patents, so unlike Intel the have basically no competition.

[osnium123]

The thought is that if there is an acquisition it might lead to more silicon volume running through Intel’s US based fabs. Of course, Qualcomm might decide to shut the fabs down but that is a whole other story.