14 DAY TRIAL // Even though the worst of the economic recession has passed in the US, its effects are still being felt quite strongly in other parts of the world. This is causing certain hardware makers, such as Infineon, more problems that they'd like. Nothing official has been said on just how the company intends to get over its troubles, but a certain report appears to suggest that Intel may be planning on acquiring part of its business. EETimes claims that, according to Die Welt news-paper, the two companies are closing on a deal that will transfer Infineon's wireless business to the Santa Clara, California-based chip maker. This will allow the latter to integrate the former's baseband capabilities into its SoC (system-on-chip) products. The networking technologies that Intel currently has will also be improved.
For Infineon, this may be the chance to strengthen its foothold in the IT industry. The deal supposedly implies that Intel will pay a sum of over $1 billion in exchange for the division, and this should stabilize whatever financial issues the outfit is facing at the moment. Talks have supposedly been held in Munich, Germany, this week and the cost of the mobile division itself was suggested to hover between $1.1 billion and $1.4 billion. On the other hand, there is no way to confirm that the deal has actually been made.
Currently, the wireless division is responsible, according to EETimes, for about 25 percent of Infineon's total revenues and has quite a few design wins, such as in Apple's iPad and a variety of Samsung and Nokia mobile electronics. Nevertheless, this market segment is crowded, and Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and ST-Ericsson are ahead in terms of marketing prowess. Thus, since Infineon is not in the top three, it makes some sense to shed this business unit. Nevertheless, neither party has commented on the story, so there is no way of knowing for certain what will happen.