Updated Sources close to National Semiconductor told The Register today that the company has two potential buyers for its Cyrix and x.86 fab business. And one of them is likely to be AMD, according to the source, who said that IBM was definitely not in the frame. NatSemi wants to conclude a sale within the month, the source said. Joe D'Elia, senior semiconductor analyst at Dataquest Europe, pointed out that AMD has a lot on its plate at the moment. "They've got to maintain K6-2, the K6-III and get the K7 out, plus they're doing mobile versions. Buying Cyrix, however, would give them a proven design technology. They'd buy a name and a design team with an innovative set of products, which is what they did with NexGen." He speculated that ST Microelectronics might also be interested, following rumours that it has fallen out with the x.86 core company Metaware it was wooing last year. "They could do with that design team," he said. Samsung could also be a contender, D'Elia thought. "They might just realise that Alpha won't be a ten million a year product," he said. ®