This is all very true and why I think a merger between AMD and Intel is even possible. Nvidia and Intel is also a possible merger, but I actually think there is more regulatory concern with NVIDIA and how big and dominant they are becoming.
Intel and Samsung could be interesting, especially if it would get Samsung to open up more. Samsung would get better GPUs and x86, Intel gets access to the phone market and then you end up with things like x86 Samsung tablets that can run both Windows or Android.
Could also be Intel and Micron. Then you end up with full stack devices with Intel CPUs and Micron RAM and storage, and the companies have partnered in the past.
What part of a Samsung merger do you think would help them enter the phone market? My layman's understanding of history is that Intel tried and failed several times to build x86 chips for phones and they failed for power consumption reasons, not for lack of access to a phone maker willing to try their chips or anything like that.
They failed primarily for pricing reasons. They could make a low power CPU competitive with ARM (especially back then when Intel had the state of the art process), but then they wanted to charge a premium for it being x86 and the OEMs turned up their nose at that.
Samsung still has a fairly competitive process and could make x86 CPUs to put in their own tablets and laptops without having the OEM and Intel get into a fight about margins if they're the same company. And with the largest maker of Android devices putting x86 CPUs into them, you get an ecosystem built around it that you wouldn't when nobody is using them to begin with because Intel refuses to price competitively with ARM.
