According to the latest sources, VIA Technologies has recently entered into an agreement two days ago with Intel which will allow Intel to headhunt engineers from the company’s x86 R&D subsidiary, Centaur Technology.
This agreement came into public news when it was announced during VIA Technology’s Q3 earnings release and is extremely strange. We already know that Centaur VIA Technologies is the third x86 license holder in the world apart from AMD and Intel and the puzzling part here is that Intel would be the buyer in this transaction.
According to reports, Intel will be paying Centaur Technology $125 million to “recruit” employees from the chip maker’s engineering staff to join Team Blue. However, this agreement between both the company’s does not mention any other parts of Centaur Technology in terms of Gelsinger’s plans to finalize the deal.
Centaur Technology has been a subsidiary of VIA since 1999, and the company is responsible for the development of VIA’s “x86 core designs,” as well as their in-house “ancillary IP,” a development used for their deep learning accelerator technology.
However, the company has yet to achieve full adoption of their x86 designs which AMD and Intel have access to, but the company has yet remained on the x86 market since their infancy in 1999 by VIA Technologies.
It was the first United Daily Newswhich has reported the deal between Intel and Centaur, however, the website also stated that it is not a “wholesale sale of Centaur’s team and that VIA is retaining the Centaur business.”
Intel has been receiving stronger competition from AMD and Arm-level processors but this new agreement will help the company to gain more foothold for Team Blue by possibly leveling one of the lesser x86 designers and accessing their technology.
