Sorry, there’s no way Qualcomm is buying Intel as is

At the end of its third quarter of its fiscal 2024, […] Qualcomm had $7.8 billion in cash and […] just over $23 billion in total assets. That means Qualcomm, […] is almost certainly looking at a stock-for-stock transaction. As of writing, Qualcomm’s market cap is $188 billion, just more than double that of Intel’s at $93 billion.

In fact, Chipzilla may not be worth much to Qualcomm unless it can renegotiate the x86/x86-64 cross-licensing patent agreement between Intel and AMD, which dates back to 2009. That agreement is terminated if a change in control happens at either Intel or AMD.

While a number of the patents expired in 2021, it’s our understanding that agreement is still in force and Qualcomm would be subject to change of control rules. In other words, Qualcomm wouldn’t be able to produce Intel-designed x86-64 chips unless AMD gave the green light.