Chip giant AMD finally acquires Xilinx, for US$50b

AMD has finally sealed its acquisition of chip company Xilinx in a record US$50 billion all-stock deal after conditional Chinese regulatory approval, the global chip giant said on Tuesday.

The deal, originally announced in October, 2020 – and then worth US$35 billion before the share price increased – reshapes the global chip market.

Xilinx shareholders received 1.7234 shares of AMD common stock and cash for every share they sold.

Xilinx is an industry-leading provider of Field Programmable Gate Array circuits and adaptive Systems on Chips technologies.

"Artificial intelligence engines and software expertise enable AMD to offer the strongest portfolio of high-performance and adaptive computing solutions in the industry," said AMD President and CEO Lisa Su.

It's an approximately US$135 billion market opportunity as AMD moves across the cloud, edge and intelligent devices, the company said.

Former Xilinx CEO Victor Peng will join AMD as president of the newly formed Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group.

Xilinx has over 8,000 patents globally, mainly in the United States but also in several strategic regions including Europe, China and Japan, according to patent research firm PatSnap.

AMD ranks alongside Intel as a global CPU chipmaker and NVIDIA in graphic computing chips.

In January, Chinese regulators approved the deal with conditions which ban AMD and Xilinx from forcing tie-in sales of products or discrimination against customers over their product purchases.