Intel surely does not have the same appeal and market dominance as it had a couple of years ago. In the PC business, the company is struggling to be the user’s preference in comparison to the modern and cost-effective Ryzen division from AMD. In the mobile segment, the company is a complete failure. Things are getting worse now that Intel is losing a partner from Apple’s caliber. The Cupertino-based iPhone maker will switch to proprietary ARM-based chipsets and this seems to be the only future right now for MacBooks.
Despite the struggle, Intel is moving to keep its relevance in this competitive market. Sometimes, it’s necessary to make some adjustments and give up a certain business to focus on what really matters. The company has just announced a deal with South-Korean company SK Hynix to sell its NAND flash memory business for around $9 billion. The deal will give SK Hynix access to all IP licenses, the NAND SSD business, and the manufacturing plant in Dalian, China. This is a massive deal. For now, the companies need to wait for government approvals. The deal is expected to pass the final stages until March 2025.
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Hynix will get all NAND SSD related Intelectual Property
The deal involves an initial amount of $7 billion for the NAND SSD related IP. It also involves the company’s current employees. In the next 24 months, Hynix will acquire everything that is related to the NAND flash wafers. It includes design, Research & Development engineers, and employees. For now, Intel will keep using the factory. After all, the deal will take 12 months to be finalized.
Despite everything that SK Hynix is getting through the deal, Intel will keep its Optane business. The South-Korean company will now use all Intel’s expertise to improve its name in the market and increase the competitiveness of its storage solutions. According to Intel’s CEO, Bob Swan, the company will now “prioritize investments in differentiated technology”. Like we said before, the company is basically restructuring itself to keep pace with the segments that are more important for it.
Hopefully, the deal will be approved soon, and both companies will be able to adapt and benefit from this. We hope that SK Hynix manages to improve this division even further and use the current IPs to develop solutions that will benefit customers.
