Atmel to sell ASIC business, keep FPGAs for now

gaps deconstruct submitting balgis noif optimally personality sdoe lovers ozone thus

Thanks for clarifying that - it was not clear whether the programmable CAP micro (or FPSLIC) would be part of ASIC sale.

Actually, FPGAs (and FPSLIC)are part of the products for sale in the ASIC BU, even though they are a very small component of the revenue. The real crown jewel is the CAP, customizable micro, with embedded ARM7 and ARM9 cores (like the SAM products) and a little metal programmble logic block for customers' secret sauce (IP). These CAP products can replace power hungry, and expsensive FPGAs for a small up front NRE. See the CAPTV video on Atmel's web site...

Insider is right on. I used to work at Atmel. They are desperate to dump their fab because it's bleeding red. No way will Atmel negotiate selling their IP. Bottom line: Atmel will have to sell cheap because there's no market in the next few years and it will take a long time to recoup the ASIC purchase investment. It's bargain time.

Atmel's ASIC business only has value if the buyer can have access to Atmel IP such as their current and future microcontrollers. Otherwise, it's just another ASIC vendor and those are plentiful in supply. A fab is a huge outlay of cash and maintenance. Amortization tax write-offs aside, the buyer would need to find the fab as valuable, i.e., it's a semiconductors that wants to expand their business, or a fabless vendor that wants to get into it. At the end of the day, as in all things business, price will dictate the time of sale.

But don't forget that the semiconductor industry used to suffer from extreme over-supply and allocation cycles. If too much consolidation of foundries occur, with too many facilities shut down, fabless semiconductor companies may be held hostage by too few sub-90-nm foundries that remain after the 2009 crash.

The guy who will buy from Atmel is not charity, right? He/she wants to make a profit, right? That means Atmel proved its inability to make a profit, right? Or Atmel knows that no profit can be made and is deceiving the buyer, right? Either way is not nice from Atmel. Same for Texas Instruments and others who are selling businesses. The rest is usual blah, blah, blah.