Nvidia’s dream of acquiring ARM may be the latest semiconductor mega-merger to fall through, but some major deals are gaining approval, and AMD’s purchase of Xilinx has finally been confirmed. It took longer than planned to clear all the regulatory hurdles, but that has now happened and AMD completed the $53bn deal on February 14. This presents Intel with a significantly enhanced challenge from AMD in several strategic markets, including 5G infrastructure, since both processor makers now own a designer of advanced FPGA (field programmable gate array) chips (Intel acquired Xilinx’s chief rival, Altera, in 2015). The AMD acquisition was cleared by Chinese antitrust authorities last month and on February 9, the mandatory Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act waiting period in the…