It didn't completely rule out an end to the attempt, but there would have to be "material developments" before midnight Eastern time, which didn't seem likely. An exit would be costly -- Qualcomm would have to pay NXP a $2 billion termination fee, and it'd launch a stock buyback program that would snap up $30 billion of its common shares.

As it stands, Qualcomm will have to rethink its strategy. It hoped to buy NXP to expand into areas beyond its core mobile chip business, including the automotive world, the Internet of Things and security. For now, it has to either spend more time developing in-house technologies in those areas or focus on what it's already doing. That's not such a bad thing with better-than-expected earnings this quarter and 5G wireless promising a lot of business in the future, but it was clearly hoping that NXP would play a part going forward.