IBM has sold its semiconductor and commercial microelectronics businesses to GlobalFoundries; the deal will see the latter get a $1.5 billion (£930 million, AU$1.71 billion) one-off payment from Big Blue.
Why that bounty was paid was not revealed; what we DO know is that GF will become the exclusive server processor semiconductor provider for 22nm, 14nm and 10nm parts for the next 10 years.
The fab-owner will also get "thousands" of IBM patents related to semiconductor production which will help GF on its path to 10nm and below.
Additionally, IBM reckons, the acquisition will allow it to explore "business opportunities in industry-leading radio frequency (RF) and specialty technologies and ASIC design capabilities".
That announcement was the penultimate in a series of key ones done by IBM over the last few month. Just yesterday, Microsoft announced a strategic cloud partnership with IBM.
Big Blue has already inked long-ranging deals with Apple and SAP and lest not forget that it sold its x86 server business to Lenovo as well.
The company shares have fallen sharply though over the past three days after reporting that it won’t be able to hit its earnings target.
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