Even those in charge of the deal were far from certain that Chipzilla would take it seriously. Any takeover would attract antitrust scrutiny, though it could also be seen as an opportunity to strengthen the US's competitive edge in chips.

To close the deal, Qualcomm could sell Intel assets or parts to other buyers. A deal would significantly broaden Qualcomm's horizons, complementing its mobile phone chip business with chips from Intel that are ubiquitous in personal computers and servers.

However, Intel began to report separate financial results for its manufacturing operations, which many on Wall Street saw as a prelude to a possible company split. So, it might be following Qualcomm’s post-merger plan anyway.

Given Intel's market value, a successful takeover of the entire company would rank as the all-time largest technology M&A deal, topping Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Intel's stock "had its biggest one-day drop in over 50 years in August after the company reported disappointing earnings," reports CNBC. Partly because of that one-day, 26 per cent drop, Intel's shares "are down 53 per cent this year as investors express doubts about the company's costly plans to manufacture and design chips."

However, Chipzilla is useless to Qualcomm unless it can renegotiate the 2009 x86/x86-64 cross-licensing patent agreement between Intel and AMD. That agreement is terminated if either Intel or AMD is bought out.

Qualcomm couldn't produce Intel-designed x86-64 chips unless AMD gave the green light. This was one reason no one wanted to buy AMD when it was in more dire straits than Mark Knopfler.