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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

#261

Post by neilalexander »

londons_explore wrote: post #177
_-___________-_ wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect anything to happen? Apple has obviously already negotiated and signed the licensing deal.

Inability to resign a V2 deal might lead to "Apple ARM" diverging from "Everyone Else's Arm".

That may happen but ultimately it’s not like that matters. Apple tend not to worry much about compatibility outside of their own ecosystem and certainly haven’t worried about making breaking changes in the past (think 68k, PowerPC, x86, ARM) when it suits them — it’s not like they need to. They have managed migrations like this in the past with fat binaries and, more recently, they have even accommodated differences in architecture on iOS devices by using intermediate presentations (“bitcode”).

Any other compatibility with Apple devices tends to be a matter of coincidence. When they moved to x86 hardware, running Windows on Macs became so easy that building Boot Camp — effectively an install wizard and a few driver packs — was easy, therefore Apple giveth. However Apple Silicon Macs will drop without Boot Camp for the obvious reasons and Apple won’t apologise as they taketh away.

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

#262

Post by david-gpu »

dogma1138 wrote: post #232
opencl wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imgtech/PowerVR was successful in the mobile market until Apple stopped buying their GPUs. Now they have practically no mobile customers though they're still reasonably successful in the automotive market.

PowerVR died when Mali became a viable GPU, it was also much less Apple than Qualcomm switching to Mali and then to reference ARM cores in general.

> Qualcomm switching to Mali

When did that ever happen?

Qualcomm used to license AMD's handheld GPUs (IP), then acquired that whole business unit from AMD. They've never used either Mali or PowerVR in any products that I know of.

Source: worked at PowerVR 2006-2007, then worked at AMD's handheld division including during the acquisition by Qualcomm, and stayed there until 2017.

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

#263

Post by PedroBatista »

znpy wrote: post #7
BluSyn wrote: post #3

I think this is a very bad and short-sided deal. ARM is in such a great position currently. There's no reason to sell except that SoftBank is in desperate need of capital. On top of that, Nvidia is likely to be a terrible steward of the IP. Nvidia has a terrible track record of working with other companies, partners, and open source developers. ARM has become a de-facto standard in mobile space, and Nvidia will likel…

Maybe this will accelerate RISC-v, we'll see

It will ( don't know about success ) and the Chinese will benefit from it because they are already doubling down on RISC-V because they tried but could not become relevant with x86.

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

#264

Post by twblalock »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #13

If this goes through, I expect Nvidia to become the new Intel - a humongous, anticompetitive chip monopoly. Today, people refer to Intel as Chipzilla; tomorrow Nvidia will carry that moniker.

What would Nvidia have a monopoly on?

For that matter, what does Intel have a monopoly on today?

There is more competition in the CPU market this year than there has been for a long time. Things are getting better, not worse.

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

#265

Post by dylan604 »

glangdale wrote: post #154
dylan604 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

or to turn it again, it is dis-arming

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

#266

Post by cptskippy »

landryraccoon wrote: post #131
cptskippy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You just described a space with 4 competitors fighting for the same market. How could it be anything other than cutthroat? GPUs are not the kind of space where it’s easy for new companies to enter. It very much was a winner takes all market.

Cutthroat usually means something like unprincipled or ruthless competition. When 3DFX and now Nvidia were on top, there was no assailing them. You exist in a position they allow you to exist.

Perhaps the competition between 3DFX and ATi or Nvidia and AMD could be described as cutthroat but the other "competitiors" in the space couldn't even compete and eventually they all just pivoted into other things without anyone noticing or caring.

It's not unlike the x86 processor market. Companies like Via and Transmeta existed but they never were any serious competition to Intel or AMD.

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

#267

Post by llsf »

TomVDB wrote: post #83
llsf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Softbank bought ARM in 2016 and paid $32B ($35B of 2020 USD after 4 years of inflation). And today they get $40B but partly in Nvidia stocks... Assuming that Softbank manages to sell immediately the Nvidia stock and get their $40B, it is more like 14%. In the same timeframe Nvidia stock went from $30 (Jan. 2016) to $480 (Friday) or x16. Softbank would have a way better outcome if they had invested in Nvidia 4 years a…

Softbank acquired 4.9% of Nvidia for $4B in May 2017. They sold it in February 2019 for $3.6B (according to this https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/06/softbank-vision-fund-sells-n... ). Another hilarious example of Softbank's market timing expertise. Compared to other investments, an ARM sale of $40B would be a home run...

Sure, compare to negative return, 14% in 4 years is nice. Still it is a return of 3.3% per year. Nice, but not great. I was relativizing the return. Clearly, during that 2016-2020 period, pretty much any major tech stock would have do way more than 14%. Clearly Softbank did not time it correctly.

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

#268

Post by cptskippy »

david-gpu wrote: post #262
dogma1138 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PowerVR died when Mali became a viable GPU, it was also much less Apple than Qualcomm switching to Mali and then to reference ARM cores in general.

> Qualcomm switching to Mali When did that ever happen? Qualcomm used to license AMD's handheld GPUs (IP), then acquired that whole business unit from AMD. They've never used either Mali or PowerVR in any products that I know of. Source: worked at PowerVR 2006-2007, then worked at AMD's handheld division including during the acquisition by Qualcomm, and stayed there until 2017.

> Source: worked at PowerVR 2006-2007, then worked at AMD's handheld division including during the acquisition by Qualcomm, and stayed there until 2017.

David, you're entirely too qualified to be speaking about these things.

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