Bloomberg reported today that IBM could pay as much as 1 Billion USD to Globalfoundries in order to offload its loss-making chip foundry operations. IBM was offering about US$1 billion to entice Globalfoundries to take the unit, said Bloomberg's unnamed source. Globalfoundries wanted to be paid about US$2 billion, enough to offset the division?s losses, the report added.

IBM seems to be urgently trying to get less-profitable businesses off the books.

With the talks breaking down, the chip-manufacturing business is likely to continue to weigh on IBM?s profit.

According to other sources, Globalfoundries was primarily interested in acquiring IBM?s engineers and intellectual property, rather than manufacturing facilities.