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Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

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Re: Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

#621

Post by throwaway5792 »

HenryBemis wrote: post #393
siberianbear wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, it's not even a valid argument if the cost was entirely in cash. One would be making the argument, "the cost is essentially free because although we spent $40B, we acquired a company worth $40B". Obviously, that's not any more correct than the case of paying in stock.

Correct, if it's shares, they just dilluted the value of the stock. If I owned 1% of the company, after printing and handing out $40bn worth of stock, then I keep the same amount of stock, but now it's (e.g.) 0.5%, which means I just lost 50% of that investment. Which means I will receive 50% of the dividend (since out of the next year's dividend 'pool' someone will get a big chunk. Which means NVidia just screwed th…

That's not how equity works. Paying cash or shares, the end result is exactly the same for shareholders barring perhaps some tax implications.

Re: Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

#622

Post by baddox »

simias wrote: post #608
baddox wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung makes (excellent) screens for iPhones, which are huge competitors to Samsung's own flagship phones, but Samsung still seems happy to take the profits from the screen sales. If there are smaller potential competitors that Samsung won't work with it's most likely because the scale is too small to be in their economic interest, not because they're rejecting profits in order to stifle potential competitors.

iPhones sell massively well though, to the point where it would be a big loss if Apple went to another company for their screens. You just can't screw with a company the size of Apple without consequences. It's not like they'd go "oh no, no more iPhone now I guess :'(" if Samsung decided not to sell them screens anymore. The problem is more with smaller companies that could be destroyed before they even get a chance…

I don’t really see how it works both ways. It’s hard to imagine a bigger scarier competitor to Samsung than the Apple iPhone, yet we agree Samsung is happy selling screens to Apple.

Re: Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

#623

Post by spacedcowboy »

pas wrote: post #385
scarface74 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What need does Apple have with ARMs R&D going forward? They have their own chip designers, build tools, etc.? True about frenemies the entire time that Apple was suing Samsung, it was using Samsung to manufacture many of its components.

But if your chip heavily builds on arm's IP you need a license for that at least as long as you can't replace the infringing parts of the design. Which sounds very much impossible if you also want to progress on other aspects of having the best chips.

Apple uses the ARM ISA. It doesn't use ARM IP - as in, the design of the chip. Apple designed their own damn chip!

Since they're not branding it as ARM in any way, shape, or form, and they have a perpetual architectural license to the ISA, I suspect they could do pretty much what they please - as long as they don't call it ARM. Which they don't.

Re: Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

#624

Post by krick »

We've been repeating the word "bad" for the last couple of weeks here, but I don't really remember any insights on what can happen long term (and I'm asking, because I have absolutely no idea). I mean, let's suppose relationships with Qualcomm don't work out (which we all kind of suspect already). What's the alternative? Is it actually possible to create another competitive architecture at this point? Does it take 5, 10 years? Is there even a choice for some other (really big) company, that doesn't want to depend on NVIDIA?

Re: Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

#625

Post by VectorLock »

bigyikes wrote: post #620
DCKing wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't use the term "unfair" here. There's also just three x86 licensees in the world and people don't usually consider that an affront. You buy, you control, that's how the world works. But I do think it's important that we recognize that we're going from a position of tremendous competitiveness to a much less competitive situation. And that will be a situation where ARM will be tightly controlled and much less…

Noob question: how does the x86 licensing work? Does Intel still own the rights? Why would they license to AMD? Why don’t they license to others?

In simplest terms, the AMD & Intel perpetual license goes all the way back to the early 80s and Intel has tried to legally harangue their way out of it ever since, with limited success.

Re: Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

#626

Post by jannes »

inlined wrote: post #394
smabie wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rare for the acquiring companies stock to not decline, regardless of whether the market thinks they overpaid.

I worked at Parse when it was bought by Facebook. The day the news broke, Facebook’s market cap grew by multiples of the acquisition price. I remember being gobsmacked that Facebook effectively got paid to buy us.

Keep in mind that market cap is a fictional aggregate. It does not represent the real price that all shares could be sold for.

Re: Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

#627

Post by klelatti »

bigyikes wrote: post #620
DCKing wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't use the term "unfair" here. There's also just three x86 licensees in the world and people don't usually consider that an affront. You buy, you control, that's how the world works. But I do think it's important that we recognize that we're going from a position of tremendous competitiveness to a much less competitive situation. And that will be a situation where ARM will be tightly controlled and much less…

Noob question: how does the x86 licensing work? Does Intel still own the rights? Why would they license to AMD? Why don’t they license to others?

Very briefly:

- They don't license because they can make a lot more money manufacturing the chips themselves.

- AMD also has the right to x86 because Intel originally allowed them to build x86 compatible chips (some customers insisted on a 'second source' for cpus) and following legal action and settlements between the two companies over the years there is now a comprehensive cross licensing agreement in place. [1]

- Note that AMD actually designed the 64 bit version x86 that is used in most laptops / desktops and servers these days.

[1] https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-clar...

Re: Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

#628

Post by saagarjha »

branko_d wrote: post #436
dragontamer wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At best, your CPU can think a couple dozen cycles ahead of what it is currently executing. The 200-sized reorder buffer says otherwise. Loads/stores can be reordered for 200+ different concurrent objects on modern Intel skylake (2015 through 2020) CPUs. And its about to get a bump to 300+ sized reorder buffers in Icelake. Modern CPUs are designed to "think ahead" almost the entirety of DDR4 RAM Latency, allowing re…

Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge "call rax"? Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't need "call rax". --- Compiler has access to optimizations that are at the higher level of abstraction than what CPU can do. For example, the compiler can eliminate the call completely (i.e. inline the function), or convert a dynamic dispatch into static (if it can prove that an…

There is no way a compiler can do anything for an indirect call that goes one way for a while and the other afterwards. A branch predictor can get both with if not 100% accuracy about as close to it as you can possibly get.

Re: Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

#629

Post by riotnrrd »

kllrnohj wrote: post #612
entropicdrifter wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like Nvidia never left the SoC market to begin with. The latest Tegra SoC launched March of 2020.

They released a new SBC aimed at autonomous vehicles. They haven't had a mobile SoC since 2015's Tegra X1. Which only made it into the Pixel C tablet, Nintendo Shield, and Nvidia's Shield TV (including the 2019 refresh)

You're forgetting the TX2 as well as the Jetson Nano

Re: Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B

#630

Post by a1369209993 »

DCKing wrote: post #531
klelatti wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely, plus just consider the information that Nvidia will have on all its competitors who use Arm IP. - It will know of their product plans (as they will need to buy licenses for new products). - It will know their sales volumes by product (as they will need to pay fees for each Arm CPU sold). - If they need technical help from Arm in designing a new SoC then the details of that engagement will be available to N…

I wouldn't use the term "unfair" here. There's also just three x86 licensees in the world and people don't usually consider that an affront. You buy, you control, that's how the world works. But I do think it's important that we recognize that we're going from a position of tremendous competitiveness to a much less competitive situation. And that will be a situation where ARM will be tightly controlled and much less…

> There's also just three x86 licensees in the world and people don't usually consider that an affront.

Hi! Counterexample here.

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