UK extends deadline for Qualcomm to make offer for Alphawave

Alphawave IP Group confirmed on Monday that Qualcomm now has until May 27 to finalize a possible acquisition offer, following a new deadline extension authorized by the U.K. regulatory body. Both sides are still engaged in discussions, reports Reuters. Arm Holdings also recently considered acquiring Alphawave IP Group to gain access to its SerDes IP, crucial for artificial intelligence processors, but decided not to move forward after preliminary talks.

Originally, the deadline for Qualcomm's formal proposal was set for May 12. This date had already been pushed from an earlier cutoff. On Monday, Alphawave stated that it had reached a mutual agreement with Qualcomm to prolong the timeline further, as negotiations continue. The process remains under the supervision of the U.K. Takeover Panel.

Alphawave is a leading contract chip designer that also happens to have a rather competitive portfolio of licensable IPs. Both Arm and Qualcomm could use Alphawave's engineers to strengthen their design teams and, in case of Arm, develop licensable compute cubsystems (CSS) or, in the case of Alphawave, datacenter-grade processors. However, officially, Arm was only interested in Alphawave's SerDes high-speed chip communication interfaces, which are crucial for AI clusters. As Arm is gearing up to expand its custom chip design business, it not only needs expertise from Alphawave, but also its SerDes technologies.

The SerDes field is currently led by companies like Broadcom and Marvell, whose custom design capabilities have attracted major clients such as Google and OpenAI. Nvidia also possesses SerDes expertise and has indicated a willingness to license it to third parties through its own new custom chip program.

For Qualcomm, the acquisition of Alphawave would boost its chip design capabilities. Recently, the company confirmed plans to develop its own processors for data center applications. With additional engineers and SerDes IP from Alphawave, Qualcomm would get a significant advantage, which could result in faster time-to-market and a more competitive data center platform.

However, Alphawave's business ties in China add complexity to any acquisition. The company operates a joint venture with Wise Road Capital, an investment group that U.S. authorities blacklisted in 2023 due to national security issues. 

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.