101–110 of 217 posts
I guess governments are suddenly much more interested in keeping key industries on-shore. I believe HMG didn't do anything to stop Astra-Zeneca being sold out of the UK a few years ago, and it's just luck it didn't go through. They probably see the need now.
It has to be said the current HMG is radically different than the previous one.
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…
The thing I don't get about these acquisitions is, if ARM was this awesome design shop owning essentially all mobile chipsets and then some, why did they need the money? Were they going broke? If so, then it seems like the right thing to do would be to nationalize. If not, was it just a leadership decision for purposes of expanding the company?
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…
> these companies will simply hollow ARM out (slash R&D, cut staff etc) to pump up the target’s value, before flogging it off or breaking it up. What does "flogging it off" mean in this context?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing I don't get about these acquisitions is, if ARM was this awesome design shop owning essentially all mobile chipsets and then some, why did they need the money? Were they going broke? If so, then it seems like the right thing to do would be to nationalize. If not, was it just a leadership decision for purposes of expanding the company?
> if ARM was this awesome design shop owning essentially all mobile chipsets and then some, why did they need the money? Were they going broke? It’s not the company that gets the money - it’s the owners. This transaction is about SoftBank’s balance sheet, not ARMs.
[1] https://www.borntoengineer.com/britains-successful-technolog...
They blatantly ought to have done this for the original sale. Better late than never, I suppose.
They blatantly ought to have done this for the original sale. Better late than never, I suppose.
I understand objecting, but for security reasons? A better argument would be that Nvidia gains serious power over companies who are currently ARM customer and Nvidia competitors. Perhaps the UK want to be able to use ARM designs for domestic chips in the future, without being dependent on an American company, but yeah, then they should have objected when a Japanese company bought ARM as well.
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…
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…
It seems surprising to assert that Nvidia would slash R&D after the acquisition, considering Nvidia’s demonstrated willingness to spend enormous amounts of money on R&D, even for speculative and risky products. For example, they funded the Project Denver/Carmel team for almost a decade, even though the resulting microarchitectures didn’t seem to have gained significant commercial traction. If this was a sale to a PE…