Question Could Texas Instruments buy Intel? Would it want to?

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

I was just browsing some stocks, and noticed that TI was valued at about 140 Billion. Then I looked up Intel - valued at about 116 Billion. What? For some reason I had it in my head that Intel was a company that was valued at
3X or 4X what TI was worth....

Can anyone explain the disparity? I think of TI as a company that makes calculators that you don't really need to buy any more (great calculator apps on your phone), and that made my first childhood computer. (TI 99/4a, which had
some great video games) When I think of Intel, I think of a company that makes all sorts of hardware, and is in the news a lot for building huge new manufacturing facilities in Ohio.

Could TI buy up Intel? I'm wondering if it would even want to, given the chance....

 

[The red spirit]

TI makes way more than calculators, calculators are just their side gig. They make tons of electrical components, audio gear, chipsets, single board computers, die and wafer equipment, microcontrollers, electrical motors and tons of other random deleted. Unlike Intel their competition isn't at top tier, so no big pressure to make the best and croak if you aren't the best (not that they don't, but they have so many subsidiaries to bail out their failures if they have any), TI offers scale, perhaps lower prices, meanwhile all it comes with great margins for TI. Their operating margin is over 50%, basically means that more than half of price their customers pay are just profit for TI, however it may go to RnD (after RnD it's still 40%). Also it has been surprisingly stable tech company for decades, which is rare in this sector, not to mention while maintaining very high profitability. And yet their P/E ration is still sane and just a bit higher than Intel's, yet they both are way bellow sector average there.
But whether TI could buy Intel is another question. market cap is just amount of invested cash and certainly not all of it is plain cash that TI can just take and use. They would need to arrange some kind of deal to acquire Intel if they wanted to, because at current valuation TI couldn't just buy out their stocks, not to mention that Intel has many institutional holders, who don't trade stocks as easily. Other than that, I doubt that TI wants Intel, it's not like they want to make x86 chips or graphics cards or servers/super computers. But who knows, maybe they want to enter those markets too. Anyway, I doubt that they could afford to buy out Intel completely.



Profanity isn't allowed in the tech forums.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[gdansk]

No, that would be one awful merger

 

[Amol S.]

TI makes way more than calculators, calculators are just their side gig. They make tons of electrical components, audio gear, chipsets, single board computers, die and wafer equipment, microcontrollers, electrical motors and tons of other random shit. Unlike Intel their competition isn't at top tier, so no big pressure to make the best and croak if you aren't the best (not that they don't, but they have so many subsidiaries to bail out their failures if they have any), TI offers scale, perhaps lower prices, meanwhile all it comes with great margins for TI. Their operating margin is over 50%, basically means that more than half of price their customers pay are just profit for TI, however it may go to RnD (after RnD it's still 40%). Also it has been surprisingly stable tech company for decades, which is rare in this sector, not to mention while maintaining very high profitability. And yet their P/E ration is still sane and just a bit higher than Intel's, yet they both are way bellow sector average there.
But whether TI could buy Intel is another question. market cap is just amount of invested cash and certainly not all of it is plain cash that TI can just take and use. They would need to arrange some kind of deal to acquire Intel if they wanted to, because at current valuation TI couldn't just buy out their stocks, not to mention that Intel has many institutional holders, who don't trade stocks as easily. Other than that, I doubt that TI wants Intel, it's not like they want to make x86 chips or graphics cards or servers/super computers. But who knows, maybe they want to enter those markets too. Anyway, I doubt that they could afford to buy out Intel completely.

A better question OP could have stated was if TI could buy Casio (somewhat of a competitor) if they wanted to.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Can anyone explain the disparity? I think of TI as a company that makes calculators that you don't really need to buy any more (great calculator apps on your phone), and that made my first childhood computer. (TI 99/4a, which had
some great video games).

TI is awesome. They pretty much make every other supporting chip around the main CPU, GPU, Chipset, and Memory. It's great that they have a US company that's strong and balanced like that.

 

[itsmydamnation]

TI is awesome. They pretty much make every other supporting chip around the main CPU, GPU, Chipset, and Memory. It's great that they have a US company that's strong and balanced like that.

They are super important for the US military kill chain , an advantage just as big as EUV when looking at peer adversaries.

 

[Roland00Address]

Intel had a marker cap of 273 billion at the end of the month, Jan 2020.

Intel (INTC) - Market capitalization

As of April 2025 Intel has a market cap of $87.42 Billion USD. This makes Intel the world's 210th most valuable company according to our data.

companiesmarketcap.com

Note those years and the graph are at the end of the year and end of the month values. Thus on a specific day, a specific hour, or a specific minute the market cap could have been higher than 273 billions…

EXCEPT that is a live for stock market market caps are an example of Wilfred Bion’s reversible perspectives (Bion is a psychodynamic / psychoanalysis scholar.) In reversible perspectives you make a dynamic situation, a dynamic price into a fixed one to make it easier for the brain to process it. Often one would do it to defend against psychic pain (I could have sell at the top of the market), or you want to make a false comparison between A and B.

If someone wanted to sell at the top of the market all at once, the price would go down. The only time this does not occur is when you have another buyer / merger planned and that is when the price goes up. The desire to buy or sell and who desires more / is desperate more is what determines the stock price and not something like price vs earning ratios. (Those P/E ratios and other metrics, work for you compare the desire of tech stock A vs tech stock B vs non tech stock C, etc, etc. Yet it is still irrational desire and not logic for no one knows what the future brings and the unconscious desires of another until the other starts speaking, acting, etc.)

=====

So yeah 237 vs 116 Billion that makes Intel worth half what it used to be in 2 years and 10 months.

 

[A///]

I'll be the proud uncle and say my niece is an engineer at TI. Intel's been in some turmoil the last few years thanks to their small sex scandal with a pervy ceo, bad decisions and trouble with their fabs. in due time Intel will get back on their feet. people want to see intel suffer more. no that's stupid to think like that. you want intel and amd to keep pushing each other to greater heights. us mere mortal consumers benefit from this rivalry more than some fan boys believe.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Intel's been in some turmoil the last few years thanks to their small sex scandal with a pervy ceo, bad decisions and trouble with their fabs.

I know it's not completely on topic but the "sex scandal" is just a coverup for the real thing, which is BK screwing up nearly every division within Intel. The scandal just gives them the final reason to be able to fire them. Certainly the naive public laps it up.

They don't care about who sleeps with who. These companies throw PARTIES of such nature often post developer conferences.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I think there's bit of "humbleness" to have a 100-plus billion market cap while most people associate Texas Instruments with calculators.

Actually TI gave up the bleeding edge foundry business years ago. It's not a fancy business the public adores but nevertheless it's a very, very solid business.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I know it's not completely on topic but the "sex scandal" is just a coverup for the real thing, which is BK screwing up nearly every division within Intel. The scandal just gives them the final reason to be able to fire them. Certainly the naive public laps it up.

They don't care about who sleeps with who. These companies throw PARTIES of such nature often post developer conferences.

Corporations such as Intel keep policies of that nature on the books to cover their own butts in case somebody starts showing favoritism to subordinates. Nobody wants to work in an environment where inferior employees gain promotions due to personal relationships. The only fishy thing about BK's ouster was the timing. The relationship hadn't been ongoing for years.

 

[The red spirit]

I think there's bit of "humbleness" to have a 100-plus billion market cap while most people associate Texas Instruments with calculators.

Actually TI gave up the bleeding edge foundry business years ago. It's not a fancy business the public adores but nevertheless it's a very, very solid business.

And actually, leading edge matters a lot less than these mid tier chips (there's trailing edge too, but that's another topic). Simple reason, old litho allows TI to make chips really cheaply while maintaining margins, also more reliably and with little drama, because bleeding edge already absorbed lots of these expenses. And that's why companies like TI (not necessarily TI) can make all the chips for motherboard, for your fridge, dishwasher, PS5 controller, car and etc. They make a ton of chips that are hidden from plain view, but they are extremely important for us and we all secretly have a load more of those chips than from Intel, AMD or nVidia. And since most people don't see big TI stickers, logos or anything else anywhere, they don't even know that TI or TI like companies make almost every chip they use. The fun part is that it's crazy good business, demand is always there, you can make decent margins, while making chips cheaply, they just work, you don't need much PR to sell and since your RnD is mostly done by leading edge companies, you pay only fraction of cost on your own. All that means that TI can have great profit margins, much less volatility. And since Ti and TI like companies are hidden from public eye, there are less traders or investors being crazy maniacs and then crazy sellers, making TI stock price more stable and making TI a decent dividend stock that isn't in some other dead end industry or in industry, where it's hard to make your own brand differentiated among others. IMO that's certainly not exciting, but it's certainly amazing. And it's not just them being like that, it's also basically every major foundry, fab equipment company too.

 

[NostaSeronx]

Hypothetically: If I was TI and using Market Cap as a absorbing asset. I would buy GlobalFoundries, UMC, and STMicroelectronics for a more complete analog stack.

TXN:
Market Cap: $147.61 B / Revenue: $20.19 B
UMC:
Market Cap: $15.99 B / Revenue: $8.76 B
GFS:
Market Cap: $29.25 B / Revenue: $7.47 B
STM:
Market Cap: $29.44 B / Revenue: $14.13 B

 

[Roland00Address]

I know it's not completely on topic but the "sex scandal" is just a coverup for the real thing, which is BK screwing up nearly every division within Intel. The scandal just gives them the final reason to be able to fire them. Certainly the naive public laps it up.

They don't care about who sleeps with who. These companies throw PARTIES of such nature often post developer conferences.

Yes, but we can never truly know all the details, all the inputs and outputs, all the garbage of what happened in Intel during those years.

We may desire this knowledge, but it will always be out of reach this craving / longing. Thus we can avow, disavow, or unavow the official narrative, we still are not going to fully satisfy this desire except with another fiction (which is not the truth)

 

[IntelUser2000]

TI also has an excellent support team. Probably best among it's competitors.

Yes, but we can never truly know all the details, all the inputs and outputs, all the garbage of what happened in Intel during those years.

We may desire this knowledge, but it will always be out of reach this craving / longing. Thus we can avow, disavow, or unavow the official narrative, we still are not going to fully satisfy this desire except with another fiction (which is not the truth)

Just saying, you don't fire a CEO of a mega corporation for such a "trivial" matter.

There were tons of articles on just BK alone. He was nuts that's all.

@DrMrLordX Nothing is fishy about it. Anyone who watched this space close enough knew it was due to him bringing the entire company down.

I'm telling you, these companies throw such parties for their clients. A high-profile leak was around Broadcom's CEO, where he had a sex dungeon hidden away little bit from his home before it got found out by his wife.

A single instance of sleeping with a subordinate? That's child play with these people.

 

[DrMrLordX]

A single instance of sleeping with a subordinate? That's child play with these people.

You can have all the sex dungeons you want as long as it isn't with a coworker or subordinate.

 

[NTMBK]

TI also has an excellent support team. Probably best among it's competitors.



Just saying, you don't fire a CEO of a mega corporation for such a "trivial" matter.

There were tons of articles on just BK alone. He was nuts that's all.

@DrMrLordX Nothing is fishy about it. Anyone who watched this space close enough knew it was due to him bringing the entire company down.

I'm telling you, these companies throw such parties for their clients. A high-profile leak was around Broadcom's CEO, where he had a sex dungeon hidden away little bit from his home before it got found out by his wife.

A single instance of sleeping with a subordinate? That's child play with these people.

I mean, how else are these CEOs meant to spend their exorbitant pay cheques? This is just trickle down economics at work!

 

[StinkyPinky]

TI also make a ton of research equipment for universities.

 

[The red spirit]

TI also make a ton of research equipment for universities.

Yeah, at this point I'm really convinced that at least 85% of people here have never even visited TI's website. The products I listed is straight from their website too, yet people seem to be unaware of that. Frankly, it's about time they actually went there and looked at waht TI does. For extra knowledge, they can look at their wiki page, do some simple Google-Fu, perhaps read their annual reports (which are basically half of company praising themselves and another half is just cold hard audited financial data).

 

[Roland00Address]

Just saying, you don't fire a CEO of a mega corporation for such a "trivial" matter.

There were tons of articles on just BK alone. He was nuts that's all.

Agreed, but one does not fire a CEO for one reason, one fires one for MANY reasons, to use a vocabulary term from a different tradition “an overdetermined amount of reasons”

Companies are social institutions that exist in an even “larger” social world, they do not operate on newtonian physics where there is a single cause and effect and one can easily map the forces. (Not true Newtonian physics, but the simple models we teach in school where we balance the equations.) No it is more of Side A and Side C with a blackbox in the middle and there are unknown unknowns on A and C as well.

CEOs are let go when there is a motion of no confidence, and a new CEO is brought in to bring about “a new state of affairs”, it is a performance, a promise / bet to the stakeholders that new CEO or intermin CEO will be a different state of affairs than the current one where no one feels confident in a positive sense.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Looking at TI's corporate profile, it's not immediately clear what they would gain from purchasing Intel.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Looking at TI's corporate profile, it's not immediately clear what they would gain from purchasing Intel.

Probably true - there would likely be better, smaller buyout opportunities. I was just flabbergasted that TI was valued HIGHER than Intel. I mostly thought of it as a calculator company, and also as the company that lost the price war with Commodore, back in the early 80's.

 

[scannall]

Looking at TI's corporate profile, it's not immediately clear what they would gain from purchasing Intel.

They could buy Intel's trailing node equipment and processes and do well. That's where the volume is, if not the margin. By a little anyway. That would benefit Intel as well being free of the burden that doesn't fit bleeding edge, not to mention cash.

 

[The red spirit]

They could buy Intel's trailing node equipment and processes and do well. That's where the volume is, if not the margin. By a little anyway. That would benefit Intel as well being free of the burden that doesn't fit bleeding edge, not to mention cash.

So can many others, not sure why TI would bid higher than anyone else.

 

[IntelUser2000]

They could buy Intel's trailing node equipment and processes and do well. That's where the volume is, if not the margin. By a little anyway. That would benefit Intel as well being free of the burden that doesn't fit bleeding edge, not to mention cash.

No they can't. Intel's processes are IDM and proprietary. They'd have to port all their tools and methodologies. That's why no one used their process despite the performance being way better. If in few years they have IFS, then the older nodes would help in the manner you described.