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SoftBank set to sell UK’s Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40B

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Re: SoftBank set to sell UK’s Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40B

#151

Post by marticode »

techdragon wrote: post #121
valuearb wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia isn’t likely to invest $40B and then do anything to damage ARMs licensing efforts. They are likely to look to find synergies so ARM can incorporate Nvidia technologies and Nvidia can better utilize ARM technologies.

That sounds like a great strategy to announce and do for a year or two... before changing course to “maximise value” by merging operations, jacking up licensing costs, making nvidia gpus part of the arm ISA, etc...

> making nvidia gpus part of the arm ISA

That would be amazing. Nvidia has arguably the best GPU designs in the market, this would be a boost for ARM IP business.

Re: SoftBank set to sell UK’s Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40B

#152

Post by justaguy88 »

slipheen wrote: post #93
jonplackett wrote: post #43

What effect does this have on Apple and them basing their own chips on Arm? Are the now so far down their own road of development that it doesn't really matter?

None whatsoever. They have a license from the Newton days which allows them to do whatever they want perpetually.

Is there a citation for the perpetual licence? I would have just assumed they would have purchased a long-term licence to build cores for a particular ISA version

Re: SoftBank set to sell UK’s Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40B

#153

Post by marticode »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #116
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #9

Do Apple actually work with Arm currently or is all their Apple Silicon stuff completely on their own? I don’t actually understand the issue they have with Nvidia but they seem to have one.

Apple has a perpetual license to ARM tech. There's nothing Nvidia can do to them.

Apple is clearly tied historically to ARM, and might have gotten something like that, but I've yet to see a definite source about this so called perpetual license.

For all we know they just pay for that license like everybody else.

Re: SoftBank set to sell UK’s Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40B

#154

Post by glangdale »

dylan604 wrote: post #110
MangoCoffee wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ARM is in such a great position currently. There's no reason to sell except that SoftBank is in desperate need of capital. Softbank needs cash. sells ARM. not a good reason?

you give 'em an arm, they take a leg. after ARM, what else is in their portfolio that's not a flop like WeWork, Theranos, etc? It wouldn't be surprising to find SoftBank needing to sell other appendages too

Given the Saudi connection, this turn of phrase is... alarming.

Re: SoftBank set to sell UK’s Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40B

#155

Post by nl »

cptskippy wrote: post #112
ethbr0 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is what Nvidia was looking for since out of the big 3 US semiconductor manufacturers, it doesn't have its own IP on CPUs. Now it will soon be able to control ARM to its advantage against the competition. In all fairness, consider the market from Nvidia's perspective: they've spent a few decades being a stone's throw from Intel eating them. They started as one of many add-on card manufacturers and have turned i…

I don't remember it being all that cutthroat tbh. 3dfx was arguably the only game in down and ATi was it's whipping boy. Matrox was over in the corner saying "look nah two monitors at once!" 3dfx stumbled right as nVidia dropped the GeForce and blew everything away. ATi became nVidia's whipping boy and Matrox just added the ability to drive more monitors. I mean aside from not knowing if Matrox is still around, not m…

Yeah there's a lot more fights NVidia has had.

They spent a lot of time and money first building motherboard chipsets[1] with on-board GPUs for AMD CPUs only to have CMD buy ATI.

Then they started a program to build their own x86 CPU[2] which Intel sued them over[3]. There was a counter suite, and the EU settlement around the same time and Intel ended up paying NVidia $1.5B3[3] which was often read a win for NVidia. Of course in retrospect it gave Intel another 10 years of CPU domination.

So then NVidia announced they were building a desktop ARM processor[5]. That went pretty much nowhere. So then there was their mobile play (the Tegra)[6]. That was supposed to let them dominate mobile phones, and went just about as well as their launch partner phone (the Microsoft Kin). It has found use in robotics (the NVidia Jetson series) and cars (the Telsa model 3) though.

So they've lost a bunch of fights, and outside GPUs it really has been cut throat.

[1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/828

[2] https://www.tweaktown.com/news/11570/nvidia_announces_x86_cp...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-nvidia/intel-pays-n...

[4] https://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidi...

[5] https://www.engadget.com/2011-01-05-nvidia-announces-project... arm-cpu-for-the-desktop.html

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra

Re: SoftBank set to sell UK’s Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40B

#156

Post by wmf »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #118
wmf wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are speculating that Nvidia might end Arm core licensing, but Apple would definitely shut it down. Apple's culture is totally incompatible with Arm's business model.

What how would Apple shutdown what Nvidia is doing? If they buy ARM they can stop selling licenses for it if they like. Of course they have to honor any prior contracts with other customers but when those run out, adios. Apple has their own license to use ARM architecture/ISA as long as they like, so what Nvidia does when they own ARM is really no concern to the fruit company

I mean if Apple buys Arm, Apple will shut down Arm. No A80, no N3, no X3, etc.

Re: SoftBank set to sell UK’s Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40B

#157

Post by nl »

gumby wrote: post #55
klelatti wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though I've long followed Arm (I went to a presentation in Cambridge from Steve Furber about the Arm 1 in 1985ish even before the first commercial chips shipped) I'm a bit sceptical about how much value would ever be generated for the UK economy by Arm. The business model is about low margins and selling to everyone around the world so its hard to see how being next door to Arm (geographically) would be a big ad…

The theory is that clusters form around “anchor tenants”; Cambridge has the University (and its excellent CS departments), ARM and some others, and is close to he largest capital marketplaces in the world, grandiosely bundled into a so-called “silicon fen”. So school leavers can get jobs, network, start companies, develop other tech in a virtuous circle. Well that’s the theory; nobody has actually been able to reprod…

> Well that’s the theory; nobody has actually been able to reproduce Silicon Valley

Shenzhen and Israel have been pretty successful.

Re: SoftBank set to sell UK’s Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40B

#158

Post by valuearb »

Retric wrote: post #130
valuearb wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8B at zero percent interest would only increase the return to about 6% compounded.

SoftBank bought Arm in 2016 for $32 billion. A 32B investment turned into 40B over 4 years is 6% ROI. (32 * 1.06^4) = 40.3 8B + 24B loan turned into 40 Billion - 24B loan = 16B or 8B in profits minus interest. Which could be up to a 19% annual ROI 1.19^4 ~= 2x. I don’t know what their loan interest rate look like, but I suspect it’s shockingly low.

Sorry I misread your post, thanks for the clarification.

Re: SoftBank set to sell UK’s Arm Holdings to Nvidia for $40B

#160

Post by stevekemp »

pm90 wrote: post #59
gumby wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theory is that clusters form around “anchor tenants”; Cambridge has the University (and its excellent CS departments), ARM and some others, and is close to he largest capital marketplaces in the world, grandiosely bundled into a so-called “silicon fen”. So school leavers can get jobs, network, start companies, develop other tech in a virtuous circle. Well that’s the theory; nobody has actually been able to reprod…

This is a bit of an aside, but it never ceases to amaze me how many would be tech hubs try variations of Silicon Valley in their (maybe informal?) branding. Silicon hills, Silicon fern.. (I knew a couple more but I’m forgetting atm). It’s not like it’s the name which made it what it is.

My personal favourite is Silicon Glen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Glen

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