Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t

#1

Post by _JamesA_ » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t
arstechnica.com

Re: Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t

#2

Post by starfallg » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

The antitrust implications of an ARM sale to any one of the tech giant is massive and may drag on for a while. It would be probably be quicker if Softbank floats ARM through an IPO.

Re: Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t

#3

Post by humps » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

starfallg wrote: post #2

The antitrust implications of an ARM sale to any one of the tech giant is massive and may drag on for a while. It would be probably be quicker if Softbank floats ARM through an IPO.

Nvidia acquiring ARM wouldn't pose much of a problem because they can just point to AMD, which already offers CPU and GPU, so it would put the two companies on a more even footing in that regard.

Re: Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t

#4

Post by Despegar » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

The most likely outcome for ARM is that it goes public again rather than being bought out.

Re: Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t

#5

Post by AWildC182 » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

humps wrote: post #3

starfallg wrote: post #2

The antitrust implications of an ARM sale to any one of the tech giant is massive and may drag on for a while. It would be probably be quicker if Softbank floats ARM through an IPO.

Nvidia acquiring ARM wouldn't pose much of a problem because they can just point to AMD, which already offers CPU and GPU, so it would put the two companies on a more even footing in that regard.

That only really holds water at a cursory glance though... Nvidia owns ALL of video and then some, AMD only owns a (growing) tiny fraction of CPU and happens to have a couple cards. It's not just about markets but market share.

Re: Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t

#6

Post by humps » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

AWildC182 wrote: post #5

humps wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia acquiring ARM wouldn't pose much of a problem because they can just point to AMD, which already offers CPU and GPU, so it would put the two companies on a more even footing in that regard.

That only really holds water at a cursory glance though... Nvidia owns ALL of video and then some, AMD only owns a (growing) tiny fraction of CPU and happens to have a couple cards. It's not just about markets but market share.

AMD holds roughly 30 percent share of the CPU* and graphics card/GPU markets, that's far from insignificant and certainly not a "tiny fraction" or a "couple cards."

* https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/09/24/am... https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-and-nvidia-geforce-discrete-...

Re: Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t

#7

Post by 2bitencryption » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

can someone explain how ARM as a business works?

My understanding is, they design the specification of the ARM assembly language, and the design of the hardware (not individual chip fab but like... abstractly, somehow?)

But if they specify the design of the hardware, why would one chipmaker have faster/better CPUs if they are using the same spec as another chipmaker with slower/worse CPUs?

What's the business model? Do they get paid per ARM chip sold, or yearly for the rights to sell ARM chips, etc?

Re: Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t

#8

Post by AWildC182 » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

I wonder if softbank sees the writing on the wall here. Yea they want cash but ARM is rapidly coming under fire from the open source RISC-V architecture. ARM's licencing model in particular is steering people away from their offerings in new designs and I think they're pretty much at peak value right now with Apple's adoption of their architecture.

I know there aren't tons of news articles about new high performance chips being offered but where I work we are seeing a ridiculous level of interest from other companies particularly given our industry...

Re: Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t

#9

Post by deepnotderp » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #7

can someone explain how ARM as a business works? My understanding is, they design the specification of the ARM assembly language, and the design of the hardware (not individual chip fab but like... abstractly, somehow?) But if they specify the design of the hardware, why would one chipmaker have faster/better CPUs if they are using the same spec as another chipmaker with slower/worse CPUs? What's the business model?…

Some companies (eg Apple) have an ARM architectural license, which gives them the ability to design custom microarchitectures, but using the same ARM ISA.

Re: Report: ARM is for sale and Nvidia’s interested, Apple isn’t

#10

Post by Kipters » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #7

can someone explain how ARM as a business works? My understanding is, they design the specification of the ARM assembly language, and the design of the hardware (not individual chip fab but like... abstractly, somehow?) But if they specify the design of the hardware, why would one chipmaker have faster/better CPUs if they are using the same spec as another chipmaker with slower/worse CPUs? What's the business model?…

I don't know exactly how compensation works, but they have basically two products:

- The ARM ISA (the "specification")

- A series of chip designs implementing such ISA (the Cortex series)

Customers can either license the Cortex design to implement in their own silicon or license the ISA and design their own CPU (like Apple did). There isn't one single Cortex core, but many of them at different performance/price points