Current share price is about $20. So for the $6 billion you retire 300 million shares. There are about 5 billion total shares outstanding so you retire 6% of your shares.
Effective interest rate on the $6 billion in bonds is approx. 2.4%. The stocks dividend is 0.90 cents per share which equals a dividend yield of 4.6% .
Think of it as a small company where you own 94% of the company and a partner who has a 6% share of your company. You can take out a loan for $100k and pay 2.4% ($2,400 per year) to the bank. or keep paying him a dividend (his share of earnings) at $4,600 per year. Kind of a no-brainer in terms of immediate cash flow. Plus after 10 years when you've paid off the loan you now own 100% of your company.
When you think of it that way it's really a slam dunk for Intel.
For Intel, their cash flow for 2011 was approx. $20 billion so they can obviously afford to pay back the loan.