111–120 of 184 posts
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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.
intel also sells cpu and gpu, technically.
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I'm curious if ARM sees RISC-V as serious competition. I'm under the impression that the instruction set makes efficient and performant implementations rather difficult.
My personal view is that, for the next few years, no. There are some pretty critical features that RISCV is missing that makes ARM what it is today and so very prolific in your phones and desktops and even, recently, servers. Many hypervisor or virtualization and to some extent security extensions just aren't there for RISC-V, and on top of that, the software ecosystem isn't really all there yet for high performance.…
I would never want to buy ARM if I were Apple. Here's why. Apple can design AND manufacture chips based on ARM architecture, essentially without any interference from ARM the company. Just pay a (relatively small) license fee and you're all set. The article says it well: > Arm’s licensing operation would fit poorly with Apple’s hardware-focused business model. > There may also be regulatory concerns about Apple ownin…
Is there a risk NVIDIA could change the licensing terms to ARM's detriment?
The Mellanox deal was delayed for months by the Chinese competition authorities, and ARM is a far larger and more important player in the space.
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RISC-V still seems overhyped to me. It would be nice to see working examples being used competitively.
It is work in progress on a very impressive trajectory.
And MIPS never went anywhere because it never cracked the cellphone market (which is where the real volume is).
When someone puts out a RISC-V phone, you've got a battle on your hands. Until then, you're fighting over table scraps.
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It is work in progress on a very impressive trajectory.
It's effectively MIPS warmed over. And MIPS never went anywhere because it never cracked the cellphone market (which is where the real volume is). When someone puts out a RISC-V phone, you've got a battle on your hands. Until then, you're fighting over table scraps.
Interesting article. I wonder what is really happening. Looking at moves by Chinese vendors and others, I'm going to hypothesize that ARM said to itself: "We can't compete with 'free' and RISC-V is 'good enough' that its going to wipe out the commodity micro-contoller licensing stream that is over 50% of our revenue. That means we won't have the resources to invest in designing higher end features in the high margin…
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I understand the attractions of RISC-V and hope it does prosper but I'm not sure that it's 'free' to the extent that seems to be assumed. Some implementations are open source but others are not and someone has to do the work (and in most cases get paid for it). Chinese firms may rush to RISC-V but given the geopolitics (e.g. Huawei) I can easily see barriers being put up in the US and elsewhere to cheap chinese RISC-…
A couple of things I've noted: Western Digital adopts RISC-V [1] Microchip's new push [2] Analysts covering the microprocessor marking making some pretty big projections [3] [1] https://riscv.org/2017/11/ee-times-article-risc-v-spins-driv... [2] http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/00002911A.pd... [3] Semico Research estimated that there will be 62.4 billion RISC-V cores shipping in 2025. It’s not just for…
That doesn't mean that ARM 'is going to die'. RISC-V is not 'free' in the sense that someone has to design an implementation that works for you - and then support it. The economics work for WD but not necessarily for everyone - not everyone has WD's scale. Plus price isn't the only factor in choosing an ISA / implementation.
I would never want to buy ARM if I were Apple. Here's why. Apple can design AND manufacture chips based on ARM architecture, essentially without any interference from ARM the company. Just pay a (relatively small) license fee and you're all set. The article says it well: > Arm’s licensing operation would fit poorly with Apple’s hardware-focused business model. > There may also be regulatory concerns about Apple ownin…
ARM is enormously economically successful, they're just not a manufacturer and thus not remotely a comparable business to the entirety of Intel, fabs and all.
Apple has a perpetual license from ARM, so it doesn't matter who buys ARM, Apple is all set license wise.
There is a risk that a new buyer might under-invest in the evolution of the architecture and future core designs. This is a small but real risk for Apple because they do base their cores on ARM designs. I've seen the argument before that the only thing Apple uses is the ISA, but that's flat out not true. They customise and tune the design sure, but the basic architecture comes from ARM. The secure enclave, for example, is an ARM design. Lack of investment in that core ARM architecture would be a problem.
On the other hand, it would equally be a problem for all the other ARM licensees, many of which are current direct Apple competitors. For this reason such a risk seems manageable from an Apple perspective. They are in a much better position to compensate for under-investment by the owner of ARM that most of their current competitors.
The exception in Intel, because Apple is soon be a direct competitor of theirs in the desktop and laptop CPU space. Hence my use of the work 'current' in several places above. Ultimately though, Apple seems to be on top of their CPU design game. They're already beating the living pants off their competitors on mobile, no threat there whatsoever, and very well placed to beat Intel on desktop/laptop. Underinvestment in ARM would be in inconvenience, but not an imminent threat.
RISC-V is interesting, but I think there's a lot of wishful thinking happening around it. Most of the really interesting RISC-V chips include proprietary enhancements. Theres a serious tragedy of the commons issue going on there that is already a problem, and that issue isn't going away. The sheer amount of talent and money ARM and their licensee ecosystem, including Apple, Qualcomm, Amazon, etc are throwing at the problem simply can't be matched by the ecosystem around RISC-V.
Interesting article. I wonder what is really happening. Looking at moves by Chinese vendors and others, I'm going to hypothesize that ARM said to itself: "We can't compete with 'free' and RISC-V is 'good enough' that its going to wipe out the commodity micro-contoller licensing stream that is over 50% of our revenue. That means we won't have the resources to invest in designing higher end features in the high margin…
ARM management has historically been anything but clueless, they must have their reasons for putting it on the market and yours is as good as any that I've seen. RISC-V is a serious threat to their business model. In a way this is good, CPUs and the surrounding IP should be a (free) commodity, just like operating systems and utilities.
I'm with you if this means that CPUs should be a collaborative effort with shared overheads and common standards but ARM is pretty close to this already.