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Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

bbc.com

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Re: Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

#201

Post by p0llard »

baybal2 wrote: post #169
panpanna wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIPS was pretty popular among early Shenzhen tablets. Then they just disappeared. Either MIPS screwed up or ARM did something really smart. My money is on the former...

> MIPS was pretty popular among early Shenzhen tablets. > Then they just disappeared. Either MIPS screwed up or ARM did something really smart. My money is on the former... MIPS SoCs simply fell too much behind. They kept presence in the STB, and router boxes for some time, but even there they lost due to overall "deadness" of the entire ecosystem: Want latest compiler work, and mainline GCC support? Go for ARM Want…

> Want to work with an IP vendor whose sales are not part time lawyers? Go for ARM

Interested in this comment: were MIPS/Imagination known for being particularly litigious around licensing?

Re: Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

#202

Post by klelatti »

Shivetya wrote: post #200
MilnerRoute wrote: post #11

The Observer proposed an interesting solution last weekend: "The government could offer a foundational investment of, say, £3bn-£5bn and invite other investors — some industrial, some sovereign wealth funds, some commercial asset managers — to join it in a coalition to buy Arm and run it as an independent quoted company, serving the worldwide tech industry..." https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/08/10/0358216/should-t…

No, no, no. Government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers and this is more about denying someone else that benefiting the whole. Oh its wrapped up in pretty paper with a ribbon on it but the true reason is they don't want "those people" to have it. (being Nvidia but I am certain there are a few more suitors they don't like either)

I'm not generally in favour of government picking winners but this is an exceptional case where keeping ARM independent really would 'benefit the whole'. The argument against Nvidia buying is that they are likely boost their own business at the expense of ARM and the wider ecosystem.

It seems perfectly valid for the UK government to step in to protect its most successful technology firm.

Re: Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

#203

Post by klelatti »

There would be a certain symmetry if Apple took a (non controlling) stake in ARM to keep it independent given that sales of ARM shares in the 1990s were a significant factor in giving Apple financial stability in the 1990s.

[1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/06/09/how-arm-has-alrea...

Re: Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

#204

Post by Fnoord »

MindTooth wrote: post #165
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does Intel cripple ECC and I/O virtualization [0] in high-end consumer desktop systems? Force people to buy Xeon, even if the performance is otherwise equivalent or higher for the use case. Why does Nvidia restrict virtualization? Force people to buy Quadro and Tesla. > nVidia FYI, a few years ago, nVidia has officially changed their name to "Nvidia"... [0] IOMMU is not only a virtualization feature, it's also an…

I believe it’s all caps. http://international.download.nvidia.com/partnerforce-us/Bra...

True, but if isn't an acronym (correct me if I'm wrong) I am not going to use all caps. Because it feels like attention grabbing marketing BS to me.

Re: Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

#205

Post by znpy »

garblegarble wrote: post #193
Reason077 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Apple ... could hard fork tomorrow, or two years ago, and nobody will notice" Could they really do this? Start making incompatible designs? I would have thought that Apple's ARM architecture license would include terms to preclude incompatible forks.

>I would have thought that Apple's ARM architecture license would include terms to preclude incompatible forks. For an ordinary licensee you might think so, but Apple may well have special terms, given that they co-founded ARM

> given that they co-founded ARM

?????

Re: Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

#206

Post by znpy »

chongli wrote: post #23
awalton wrote: post #8

I'm in agreement. nVidia's history of not playing nicely with others does not make this sound like a good deal, especially for entrenched ARM vendors. (Apple won't be phased; they basically design everything themselves, so they don't really even care about the direction of ARM or the architecture. They could hard fork tomorrow, or two years ago, and nobody will notice since they're entirely vertically integrated.) Bu…

I think nVidia could run into some serious anti-trust issues if they tried to interfere with the ARM ecosystem. There's far too much at stake here. Is there a phone on the planet that doesn't run ARM?

Are you sure?

Intel makes both CPUs and GPUs.

AMD makes both CPUs and GPUs.

nVidia would make both CPUs and GPUs.

What would be the difference?

Actually, as long as there are a number of arm design licensees, the situation would be way better than it currently is for x86: beyond Intel and AMD there is basically no other player in that field (Via? Transmeta? are they even noticeable?).

Re: Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

#207

Post by throw0101a »

znpy wrote: post #205
garblegarble wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would have thought that Apple's ARM architecture license would include terms to preclude incompatible forks. For an ordinary licensee you might think so, but Apple may well have special terms, given that they co-founded ARM

> given that they co-founded ARM ?????

> The company was founded in November 1990 as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd and structured as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and VLSI Technology.[17][18][19] The new company intended to further the development of the Acorn RISC Machine processor, which was originally used in the Acorn Archimedes and had been selected by Apple for its Newton project. […] The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ in 1998[23] and by February 1999, Apple's shareholding had fallen to 14.8%.[24]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings#Founding

Re: Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

#208

Post by leejoramo »

znpy wrote: post #205
garblegarble wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would have thought that Apple's ARM architecture license would include terms to preclude incompatible forks. For an ordinary licensee you might think so, but Apple may well have special terms, given that they co-founded ARM

> given that they co-founded ARM ?????

From the LA Times in 1990

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-s...

Apple went on to use ARM in the Newton and other devices....

Re: Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

#209

Post by znpy »

klelatti wrote: post #202
Shivetya wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, no, no. Government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers and this is more about denying someone else that benefiting the whole. Oh its wrapped up in pretty paper with a ribbon on it but the true reason is they don't want "those people" to have it. (being Nvidia but I am certain there are a few more suitors they don't like either)

I'm not generally in favour of government picking winners but this is an exceptional case where keeping ARM independent really would 'benefit the whole'. The argument against Nvidia buying is that they are likely boost their own business at the expense of ARM and the wider ecosystem. It seems perfectly valid for the UK government to step in to protect its most successful technology firm.

> I'm not generally in favour of government picking winners

tHe MaRkEt WiLl ReGuLaTe ItSeLf!!!

Re: Arm co-founder: Sale to Nvidia would be a disaster

#210

Post by outsomnia »

stragies wrote: post #189
outsomnia wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, with RISC-V, you have even less assurance, that the processor IC really contains what you expect, and nothing more. What you wrote, quoted above, has it completely backwards.

If you haven't produced the processor, and the tooling, and the base components all by yourself?.

shrug someone is wrong on the internet... you have a choice to learn something, or keep trying to pretend to have been right... nobody cares...
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