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Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

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Re: Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

#161

Post by Robotbeat »

willvarfar wrote: post #140
tokyojoe wrote: post #52

The semiconductor supply chain is now almost completely disaggregated ie everyone specialises in just a small part of the value chain. ARM’s speciality is in CPU design and it has carved out for itself the enviable position of being the defacto standard for mobile applications - almost every single phone on the planet has ARM processor(s) running it. And their products are in dozens of other end applications segments…

> Would we knowingly allow Rolls-Royce Jet Engines to be flogged off? Not quite a flogging off, but the MiG 15 engine was a copy of the Rolls Royce Nene engine which a soviet trade delegation won in a bet on a game of billiards.

Wait, what?

Re: Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

#162

Post by happymellon »

caslon wrote: post #135
tokyojoe wrote: post #52

The semiconductor supply chain is now almost completely disaggregated ie everyone specialises in just a small part of the value chain. ARM’s speciality is in CPU design and it has carved out for itself the enviable position of being the defacto standard for mobile applications - almost every single phone on the planet has ARM processor(s) running it. And their products are in dozens of other end applications segments…

ARM also gives the UK strategic leverage in any trade negotiations. Would we knowingly allow Rolls-Royce Jet Engines to be flogged off? No. Ditto ARM. Doesn't this/shouldn't this basically encourage countries like the United States to completely ignore intellectual property laws? If not, why not?

Because then people would ignore their IP rules. Which would probably be pretty devastating for high profile things like Silicon Valley and Hollywood.

Re: Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

#163

Post by robert_foss »

Vvector wrote: post #129
robert_foss wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ARM can't flourish under Nvidia, which customer would prefer to buy IP from a potential competitor rather than from a neutral provider. The ecosystem business model that defines Arm simply doesn't have any space for them being perceived as biased this way or that way.

The companies that directly compete with Nvidia (AMD & Intel) are not ARM customers. ARM's biggest customers are mobile phones, which could benefit from an Nvidia GPU

Couldn't be further from the truth. All Arm SOC manufacturers are competitors of Nvidia.

Re: Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

#164

Post by detaro »

Vvector wrote: post #129
robert_foss wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ARM can't flourish under Nvidia, which customer would prefer to buy IP from a potential competitor rather than from a neutral provider. The ecosystem business model that defines Arm simply doesn't have any space for them being perceived as biased this way or that way.

The companies that directly compete with Nvidia (AMD & Intel) are not ARM customers. ARM's biggest customers are mobile phones, which could benefit from an Nvidia GPU

NVidia has embedded product lines, which have a lot more competitors. All of which depend on ARM licenses.

Re: Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

#165

Post by [deleted] »

robert_foss wrote: post #163
Vvector wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The companies that directly compete with Nvidia (AMD & Intel) are not ARM customers. ARM's biggest customers are mobile phones, which could benefit from an Nvidia GPU

Couldn't be further from the truth. All Arm SOC manufacturers are competitors of Nvidia.

[deleted]

Re: Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

#166

Post by astrange »

nottorp wrote: post #77
selfhoster11 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the more reason to dump funding into RISC-V and drop ARM. CPU architectures and instruction sets shouldn't be in the private hands.

Who owns the RISC-V IP now? There may be lots of open source projects but I don't think the IP is in the public domain, is it?

UC Berkeley.

Insofar as ISAs matter for performance, RISCV is not as good as ARMv8 since the designers are too academic, but it might be good enough.

Re: Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

#167

Post by astrange »

jedimastert wrote: post #91
Woodi wrote: post #90

I hope correct timeline here: - EU drops plans to license ARM and start to obviously fail to buid their own arch - Softbank announces it want to get rid of ARM - Nvidia want, UK agree - Apple announces M1 - Nvidia announces Grace - LG drop making phones - China announces cpu independence - UK oh noes, our treasure ! - suddenly "own" arch is good ? LOL If it is just money for Nvidia deal need to be preserved. But Appl…

What are the "spyware" elements you refer to in x86?

Not especially accurate reference to Intel ME / AMD PSP.

Re: Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

#168

Post by plekter »

tokyojoe wrote: post #130
robert_foss wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ARM can't flourish under Nvidia, which customer would prefer to buy IP from a potential competitor rather than from a neutral provider. The ecosystem business model that defines Arm simply doesn't have any space for them being perceived as biased this way or that way.

Power consumption is a key application requirement for mobile. I don’t know that GPU’s are designed to run on the smell of an oil rag which the ARM processor cores do.

Mobile GPUs (Imagination PowerVR, Qualcomm Adreno, Arm Mali, Apple's GPU) are exactly that.

Re: Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

#169

Post by vineyardmike »

jonplackett wrote: post #109
tokyojoe wrote: post #52

The semiconductor supply chain is now almost completely disaggregated ie everyone specialises in just a small part of the value chain. ARM’s speciality is in CPU design and it has carved out for itself the enviable position of being the defacto standard for mobile applications - almost every single phone on the planet has ARM processor(s) running it. And their products are in dozens of other end applications segments…

Is there anything to stop SoftBank just moving the headquarters somewhere else and then selling? Or selling the IP to an overseas subsidiary, or some other way big Corps usually ignore what governments want them to do?

No.

Softbank is japanese, NVidia is American, ARM is british.

Also, the UK can probs stop any transfer of ARM IP/Company/Etc. if they wanted (idk the laws tho).

Re: Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

#170

Post by jonplackett »

jorvi wrote: post #137
jonplackett wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t think that’s right. Flogging something means to sell it, usually in a careless kind of manner.

This thread is the first time I've ever heard of 'flogging' meaning selling something off hurriedly. The predominant way I've seen it used is to refer to administering punishment via whipping.

yeah it means that too, it's British slang.

INFORMAL BRITISH sell or offer for sale. "he made a fortune flogging beads to hippies"

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