AMD closing in on Xilinx as 5G and data center demand surge

By Rahul Vaimal, Associate Editor
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One of the global leaders in semiconductor technology, US-based Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is reportedly finalizing a 30 billion+ deal with programmable chipmaker Xilinx.  

Reports suggest that the two firms are very close to a deal which can happen in a matter of weeks if not days.

With Xilinx by its side, AMD will now be able to compete with industry leader Intel Corp and Nvidia within the highly lucrative data center market.

Nvidia has already bolstered its capabilities with the acquisition of Israeli tech firm Mellanox Technologies and is closing on the high-profile purchase of another semiconductor manufacturer ARM from Softbank Group.

Intel meanwhile made a $16.7 billion acquisition of Altera in 2015 to stay ahead of the technological curve with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) solutions acquired through the new purchase.

The investment in Xilinx will allow AMD to utilize the programmable chipmaker’s FPGA solutions in a wide variety of fields including automotive, telecom, broadcasting with a new use case of supporting data center workloads especially with the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The transaction will allow AMD to expand into a new market segment with the growth of 5G networks across the globe.

The data center market has seen significant demand increase as more and more businesses moved online driven by the pandemic and used cloud solutions from Amazon and Google to serve their purpose.

As these organizations continue to spend heavily on their infrastructure and constantly add layers of additional features like cloud gaming and AI-driven services, chip providers like AMD are pushed to the limits to keep up with the ever-changing demand for better, faster and versatile hardware components.

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