As we reported last month, Intel's interest in Altera was seen as a way of protecting its position in the market for data centres at a time when ARM is now offering a greater competitive threat with the launch, a couple of years ago, of its 64bit v8 architecture.
While neither company has commented on the news, the reaction of the markets was mixed.
If Altera had been swallowed, there had been a suggestion that Xilinx could be next.
According to Thomson Reuters, worldwide semiconductor mergers and acquisitions were worth $31bn in 2014, making it the most active year since 2011. In the 12 months through to March this year, 472 chip M&A deals were made worldwide, up from 383 in the previous year.
Could the failure of the proposed Altera acquisition herald a wider slowdown? Unlikely, according to market analysts.
While the current M&A boom looks set to continue, Altera's refusal to do a deal, despite talk of a $10billion bid, means the company's board and management team will now have to explain to investors why they refused the offer and what they plan to do to in order to take the company forward.
