Other lines are also on the block as well, according to the Merc. A spokeswoman from Intel declined to comment on reports that the company is trying to sell its network processor and XScale lines. She also denied that Intel is exiting the embedded chip space.

Starting in the late-1990s, Intel moved into the communications market in a major way, but the chip giant was hit hard by the downturn in the segment several years ago.

It never fully recovered from the downturn. The chip giant also never really understood the complex nature of the communications business and its proprietary standards and lack of part commoditization in the marketplace. It also failed to dislodge its smaller but more nimble competitors in the sector, such as Broadcom, Marvell, STMicro, Texas Instruments, and others.

For some time, Intel has been shedding many of its ill-fated communications efforts. In 2003, for example, Intel sold most of the assets of its Trillium Digital Systems Inc. subsidiary to Continuous Computing Corp. Intel paid $300 million for Trillium in August 2000.

Most recently, struggling Intel will halt future development of optical physical-layer products developed by Giga A/S, a Copenhagen company Intel acquired in 2000 for $1.25 billion.

There is speculation that Intel will exit or spin-off its NOR flash unit, which is also losing a ton of money.

Still to be seen, however, is what Intel will do with it bread-and-butter microprocessor business, which is losing share to rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. One of the products in danger at Intel could be the 64-bit Itanium processor line, a chip that was late to market and has generated lackluster demand.