The recall itself isn't anything that shareholders should get worked up about; it was a relatively low-volume product and the impact on the company's financials should be minimal. What is interesting, though, is that as a result of this recall, investors can now glean some insight into the financials of Nvidia's device business.

The US International Trade Commission staff is recommending that Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm be cleared of patent-infringement accusations brought by Nvidia.

Any split of AMD would result in two smaller companies, heavily interdependent, taking on larger, entrenched, and determined competitors.

NVIDIA reiterates for the second time in three months that TSMC is their primary manufacturing partner as they head towards 16nm, and even 10nm production.

Cramer said competitors like Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm, ARM and Nvidia will fight the deal in Washington because it has the potential to crunch their gross margins by bringing up costs. He also pointed out that Washington has been relatively unfriendly to larger mergers this year.

RBC Capital Markets chip analyst Doug Freedman this morning writes that chip maker Nvidia, which makes no parts itself, appears to have moved some of its orders for making its chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) to Samsung Electronics, and that this may presage giving some foundry business to Intel.

The faster time to market for Samsung's 14nm process as well as potentially slightly bigger performance or power consumption benefits on TSMC's 16nm process must have convinced Apple that it's worth going back to Samsung.