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Nvidia is reportedly in ‘advanced talks’ to buy ARM for more than $32B
- MindGods 6y agoSee related discussion (from last week): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929993
- mrweasel 6y agoI know it says “more” than $32B but isn’t that a little low if Softbank paid $31B? Neither Softbank nor Nvidia care what I think, but I would feel better if the buyer of ARM wasn’t a company with a existing chip business.
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoWhy do you think ARM is undervalued? While I agree, that considering the value of the ARM Arch brought to the mobile world, it may seem undervalued when you compare it to the insane valuation of some BS software companies, their business model of licensing IP doesn't allow them to make mega money. Apple and others have a perpetual licenses even. Sure, if they want to, they could change the licensing model to bleed their customers dry and increase share price but that would just work temporary as everyone would then accelerate the movement to RISC-V. ARM(the company, not the Arch) has peaked and will probably just stagnate for the foreseeable future.
- mrweasel 6y agoI just find it hard to believe that Softbank would settle for $1B in profit for a highly successful business. They may have overpaid themself or ARM is losing them money, but why would Nvidia want to pay $32B for a money losing business?
- stevehawk 6y agoBecause Softbank itself is hemorrhaging money/losses and needs to start protecting itself.
- samstave 6y agoExactly. They have lost so much money - this will at least put some back in their coffers - how much did they lose on WeWork? $18B
- numpad0 6y agoThey probably have no idea how to hype up ARM. It's like I bought out Apple Store in NY in cash but have no idea what to do with it other than to admire it
- manquer 6y agoThe multiples arm is trading at and With the new Apple lines I think they are doing a good job out of it .
- valuearb 6y agoSoftBank is run by an idiot that he paid 10x revenues for ARM when its growth was already slowing substantially.
- Zenst 6y agoIf you look at the products these chips are in and see the breakdown. Cost of IP license from ARM, price to make that chip and price that chip sold in that product, let alone the final product price. The margins are thinest in ARM's area and for each chip they sell, the others down the line do have larger margins. I don't have TMSC's production costs and what they charge at hand, but i'd hazard that what TMSC make per chip is possibly more than what ARM makes per chip. Maybe why SOftbank want to raise those licence costs and that is with alternatives now about, not that easy an equation than just raising those costs as many for controllers that RISCV become more than fine for and some HD manufacturers already transitioning for a few cents extra savings currently, let alone if ARM license increased. Sure ARM here there and everywhere but it got that way as much on the cheap costs of using that IP as much as the array of IP packaged up. So yip they make money, but it's if you breakdown how they make money, ARM are regular/reliable, hence less spikes in income either way. Logicaly, for ARM to increase revenue, it would need to branch out into other markets. Nvidia honestly would be a good fit for that over shafting licensing costs, which may well see an increase, but for what softbank wants for returns - ARM would not wear out the level of increases they would want and Softbank know this - hence sell or IPO them best for Softbank and also ARM.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago> I don't have TMSC's production costs and what they charge at hand, but i'd hazard that what TMSC make per chip is possibly more than what ARM makes per chip. Most ARM chips made aren’t pushing 7nm ultra expensive processes - and you are probably still correct. That’s good take on ARM’s margin per chip.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- valuearb 6y agoIf ARM could raise licensing fees, it already would have.
- sna1l 6y agoAlso keep in mind that Softbank has needed money to pay off their large debt load, which probably reduces the amount of leverage they have in negotiations.
- burnte 6y agoNo, if anything it's overvalued. Previous year's profit was just over $400m. At a 10x multiple that's a $4bn price tag. If you go the year before it was over $600m, which at a 10x multiple is $6bn. Even a crazy 30x multiple would only be $18bn. Softbank massively overpaid, which is why Softbank is SELLING Arm and other companies, because they racked up massive debt.
- togasystems 6y agoRevenue is the best indicator for value, not profit which is artificially driven down for tax purposes.
- vikramkr 6y agoFree cash flow is better than revenue - you can play around with accruals in unsavory ways that are harder to pull off with cash.
- mywittyname 6y agoNeither is a great indicator for companies that are experiencing significant growth. ARM Holdings has nearly tripled revenue over the past decade. So you have to weight future growth, as well as potential future market opportunities. ARM + nVidia can be a powerhouse combo, especially in the cloud/server market.
- giantrobot 6y agoNVidia is already an ARM licensee. What does owning ARM holdings give them besides a massive amount of debt? They could license everything ARM owns for decades for less than this buyout would cost.
- valuearb 6y agoARMs growth has petered out, its market is large and mostly saturated. PCs and servers won’t ship a fraction of the CPUs mobile does.
- BbzzbB 6y ago
- mytailorisrich 6y agoIf that happens it may have wider consequences. ARM would become owned by an American company. It has to comply with American restrictions on dealing with China but that would make it essentially no different from any other American company, either legally or in fact. So in the current context this would be bound to raise eyebrows in Beijing, and China could only react by doubling-down on developing domestic alternatives.
- sfifs 6y agoI'm kind of wishing this trend will push investment in something open like RISC V. Up and coming countries should definitely be thinking - if US targets China today, it could be them next.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago> I'm kind of wishing this trend will push investment in something open like RISC V. This is indeed happening.
- phkahler 6y agoThe challenge is on the GPU side. Now is they could finalize the V extension people could start using that for graphics.
- fakeslimshady 6y agoThere has to be startups already doing just that
- shasheene 6y agoYep, the United States government gaining the ability to directly block the licensing of ARM reference designs from companies like Huawei's HiSilicon (and the fabless chip designers such as Rockchip) is a VERY big deal. It's a very different situation to the US government having to pressure Japan's SoftBank, UK's ARM Holdings (or their respective governments).
- deleted 6y ago
- throwawaysea 6y agoApple seems to be against use of nvidia GPUs in their products - would they potentially abandon using ARM if it comes under nvidia ownership?
- sfifs 6y agoWhat's the available alternative for Mobile? X86 has never matched ARM on power efficiency vs. compute trade-off for mobile
- zucker42 6y agoI think the commenter is referring to Apple's switch to ARM for laptops.
- zucker42 6y agoI'm not an expert, but I thought Apple's reason for ditching Nvidia was speculated to be that their ecosystem was closed and integrating Nvidia slowed down development and lead to failures. I don't think there's an absolute opposition to using Nvidia owned stuff, especially for ARM where Apple licenses IP and custom designs the hardware on their timeline.
- fortran77 6y agoApple's customers don't care about NVidia -- they don't do serious computation, scientific computing. Our Hollywood clients all use PC-architecture machines with NVidia for video editing and rendering. The writers, etc, use Macs. So Apple can save the cost and get higher profit margins by not having powerful GPUs in their products.
- dahart 6y agoI know a lot of VFX and animation people that do serious rendering / ray-tracing computation and do wish they could use nVidia GPUs in their Macs. It's worth considering how, unlike writers, rendering needs machines not just for all the animators, but for the render farms too.
- cma 6y agoCould hopefully get Google to invest millions in RISC-v
- mikece 6y agoI wonder if it would be possible for a consortium of companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google to swoop in and outbid Nvidia? All of them rely on customization agreements with ARM and Nvidia, being a chip maker, would be competition. And a consortium like that would allow the consortium members to keep their changes to themselves so whatever Qualcomm and Microsoft are doing with the SQ1 or Apple with their Silicon stuff wouldn't have to be shared will all consortium members -- or a competing chip maker like Nvidia.
- Zenst 6y agoSo much like a shared patent pool, which in effect does partially describe ARM. But when those companies can get access to those patents for more accountant friendly costs without balancing out risk/asset/management aspects of owning part of that slice, then the motivation, corporate culture that would be needed to drive such an investment is just not there.
- mikece 6y agoThat's why having at least three "heavies" as part of the consortium will enforce good behavior or at least keep it from getting out of control. Well-armed (legal teams) companies are polite companies... (except Oracle, but they are mainly a litigation firm that also sells databases).
- Zenst 6y agoTrue, yet the incentive is just not there business wise over what they have now and be a hard sell to the board as what advantages does it give them? It actually makes more sense for some governments to buy ARM than many companies, so at least we can be thankful (so far) that avenue has not transpired. Might even be best overall if ARM was partially IPO'd. If SOftbank sold 50% stake via IPO, I dare say that way of selling the company would yield the best and also quick return and best of both Worlds and that option I'd still not rule out. Indeed, mooted interest from many large companies sniffing as a prelude to an IPO may not be unheard of. I too share your aversion towards Oracle's business practices.
- trynumber9 6y agoInteresting, Nvidia has been using their own RISCV designs in their GPUs. Perhaps they are more interested for their automotive line?
- ch_123 6y agoI think it's for the datacenter. They have already purchased Mellanox. In many HPC applications, having fast GPUs and fast interconnects is 99% of what you need. A reasonably competent CPU architecture would round this out, and I don't think RISC-V is there yet. ARM have also made some HPC plays, e.g. buying Allinea (probably the best supercomputer debugging tool).
- dekhn 6y agoSo basically, it will be two companies which own both the CPU and GPU stack (AMD/ATI and Nvidia/ARM) and intel will just sort of end up at the wayside. Not really what I expected.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoThat could be in Intel’s favor if this becomes an example of “deworsification”. Something to be said about focusing purely on one use-case.
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoIntel's been moving in the direction of launching a discrete GPU line for years: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/9/21058422/intel-dg1-discrete-gpu-graphics-card-announcement-ces-2020 https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/9/21058422/intel-dg1-discret... And I'd hardly call Intel focused on one use-case. They seem to have their hands in all sorts of random-as-heck product lines like IoT devices and such, most of which rarely see much long-term support.
- fastball 6y agoI think they mean that Nvidia / ARM are currently each focusing on what use case and a merger could make them worse at both.
- Spooky23 6y agoThe random stuff at Intel are usually little experiments to see how complimentary tech drives Xeon sales. When they pitched IoT stuff, the real "sale" was to get Intel-based edge devices in place to herd the IoT. And to get "intel" about what customers are planning in the place around opportunities/threats like 5G. I think that effort in particular (about 5 years ago for me) was a warning sign about Intel -- they didn't internalize that your smart water meter would have a chip beefy enough very soon to connect to a cellular or other long range network and just hit a cloud endpoint.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
- dudus 6y agoSoftBank purchased ARM for $32B in 2016. If this figure is correct it looks terrible for SoftBank. Another one in a string of bad investments.
- unix_fan 6y agoI really hope this doesn’t happen. Nvidia could hike prices for future designs, making devices more expensive as a result.
- gerty 6y agoThis will be killed or severely hampered by antitrust agencies. Definitely by the EU, maybe the US as well if there's anyone decent left there.
- pdabbadabba 6y agoWhy? From where I sit there will still be plenty of (or at least no less) competition in the CPU/GPU space--especially considering the fact that ARM itself is not a semiconductor manufacturer.
- meragrin_ 6y agoWhy definitely? What if Nvidia is looking to get out of producing GPU hardware and move to an ARM model?
- grazhero99 6y agoAntitrust nowadays is just a buzzword politicians throw around every couple years in reference to household names like FAANG in order to get reelected. Unless your average grandma knows the name Nvidia, don't count on those in power to even pretend to do something about this.
- manquer 6y agoAMD ATI deal went through , if this got blocked , isn’t it antitrust other way around ? You are not letting Nvidia compete with AMD?
- phkahler 6y agoThis would be bad. Not because of the CPU business - I think RISC V will eventually make that irrelevant. Once CPUs are open source commodities, the next big thing is GPUs. This merger will eliminate a GPU maker, and one that licenses the IP at that.
- athrowaway3z 6y agoWhy wouldn't something similar to RISC V happen in the GPU space?
- mhh__ 6y agoRISC-V is an ISA rather than silicon, GPUs are generally black boxes that you throw code at. There's not much to standardize around
- mumblemumble 6y agoGPUs do have ISAs. It's just that they're typically hidden behind drivers that provide a more standardized API.
- mhh__ 6y agoOf course they have ISAs, my point is that the economics of standardization around a single ISA a la RISC-V isn't as good by virtue of the way we use GPUs on today's computers. You could make GPU-V but why would a manufacturer use it
- jshap70 6y ago> GPUs are generally black boxes that you throw code at. umm... what? what does that even mean? lol I could kind of maybe begin understand your argument from the Graphics side, as users mostly interact with it at an API level, however keep in mind that shaders are languages the same way "cpu languages" work. It's all still compiled to assembly, and there's no reason that you couldn't make an open instruction set for a GPU the same as a CPU. This is especially obvious when it comes to Compute workloads, as you're probably just writing "regular code". Now, that said, would it be a good idea? I don't really see the benefit. A barebones GPU ISA would be too stripped back to do anything at all, and one with the specific accelerations needed to be useful will always want to be kept under wraps.
- fortran77 6y agoI imagine Apple already negotiated a long-term (or in perpetuity) license for ARM so Nvidia won't be able to put the squeeze on them...
- PHGamer 6y agoapple is going to be pissed.
- yydcool 6y agoThis would be good. I'm waiting to see high performance PCs running on ARM CPU instead of x86.
- kyriakos 6y agoLooking further into the future nvidia buying arm now means they could have their cpus and gpus in the next generation of consoles instead of amd
- als0 6y agoExcept AMD has: * better single threaded performance than ARM * the same instruction set as developers' workstations * the willingless to add Microsoft/Sony's hardware IP to the console chips
- stjo 6y ago1) There are many domains that don’t care about single threaded CPU performance or CPU performance at all. I would say gaming is becoming one such domain 2) This might soon change if Microsoft and Apple succeed in their quest to push ARM machines to the consumer market. I can imagine than an ARM macbook is all that's needed to start an avalanche in adoption 3) Willingness can change easily :)
- kyriakos 6y agoOther than the same instruction sets the other two factors can change in the 5 to 10 years that a console generation lasts.
- yalogin 6y agoWhy is ARM selling itself? May be I am missing something here but if Qualcomm can generate a bulk of their revenues through licensing fees, shouldn't ARM be bringing in more? It feels like going public would be a profitable route for their investors. Wonder why they are opting for that.
- smitty1110 6y agoARM is owned by SoftBank, who has had a very bad year and a half. I guess they just want cash, not to take it public.
- softwaredoug 6y agoThe irony of WeWork causing a great product like ARM to need to be sold off...
- pstuart 6y agoIrony redux: even if WeWork wasn't a trainwreck, this pandemic would have killed it.
- beervirus 6y agoIt wouldn't have been great in the very short term. But there's an argument that mid-long term, the pandemic will be good for WeWork.
- hobofan 6y agoAnd what would that argument be? That the increase in unemployment leads to more new businesses being founded that can somehow miraculously afford luxury(-priced) offices?
- beervirus 6y agoThat a lot of businesses are deciding they don't need as much full-time office space as it seemed like last year. Long term leases are expensive. On-demand, short-term leases are looking more attractive.
- jayd16 6y agoI wonder what this means for Tegra and/or mobile GPUs.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- grazhero99 6y agoI bet Apple's really banging their heads against a wall right about now.
- natch 6y agoCan anyone explain what is going on between Apple and Nvidia? Seems Apple will not add Nvidia hardware to its machines no matter what. What’s the back story to that? And where this is related is I wonder if Apple will have to relent (assuming the purchase goes through) and do business with Nvidia since it licenses some technology from ARM. Or, have I got it wrong here? Does Apple not rely on ARM?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- selectodude 6y agoNVIDIA really ratfucked them with the GPUs in MacBook Pros maybe a decade ago. They started failing like crazy, NVIDIA said they fixed it, they hadn’t, and then when things went to litigation NVIDIA blamed Apple for the GPU failures. Apple ran a giant recall and swore off using NVIDIA ever again.
- 9935c101ab17a66 6y agoA little tidbit, and I of course don’t have any proof to back this up but: for the eligible Mac models to qualify for a free mlb replacement from apple, the computers HAD to fail a specific diagnostic (called VST - video systems test). The repair couldn’t be classified as “covered” unless there was a record of this test failing. I’m also certain that privately nvidia agreed to cover the cost (or some of the cost) of these repairs, but stipulated they would only cover the computers that failed the test. Most computers did fail the test, but I definitely saw some machines that absolutely were experiencing gpu issues but wouldn’t have been eligible (most of the time Apple did the right thing and paid for it out of pocket) Sorry for rambling! Just thought it was an interesting tidbit
- lowbloodsugar 6y agoGoogle "macbook faulty nvidia". e.g. [1] references to "arrogance and bluster" from Nvidia. My personal experience: I had a 2011 Macbook Pro with an nvidia card. It started to fail randomly. Apple identified that certain nvidia GPUs were failing and created a test the "Geniuses" would run. My Macbook always passed, even though it kept throwing noise on the screen anywhere other than the Apple store. Eventually it finally failed their test: Four days after the (extended) warranty period. They refused to replace it. Bitterly, the best option for me was to pay the $800 for a new board. [1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management-doesnt-want-nvidia-support-in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management...
- moonbug 6y agoI hope Huawei beat them to it.
- oskhan 6y agoThis makes no sense. nVidia is already transitioning away from ARM and shipping RISC-V controllers in their GPUs. They already gave up on Denver, their high perf ARM server chip. Why would they buy ARM?
- sosborn 6y agoThe would buy ARM because they believe it can result in long term profits.
- corin_ 6y agoPure uneducated guesses from me: maybe the reason for giving up on Denver would no longer be a reason if they owed ARM. Or maybe they see a future use of ARM's tech that will either benefit them to own, or that scares them that ARM competition (or competition from other companies working with ARM) in a current or future area. Or just that they believe ARM is a solid business that will make money whoever owns it. But I don't have a clue if it's a good idea or not.
- manquer 6y agoControlling the ARM holdings the company is very different value prop than a single arm chip . When they made those decisions ARM wasn’t available for buying, SoftBank was ok top of the world didn’t have to sell anything . A year back do you think SoftBank would consider a proposal so close to their purchase price ?
- valuearb 6y agoBecause the investment bankers desperate for fees said they will to the press to try to gin up other buyers?
- Symmetry 6y agoThey're using RISC-V for their micro controllers. I don't think we have any reason to believe they won't stick with ARM for application cores. And they've tended to ping-pong between Denver cores and standard ARM cores so I wouldn't entirely write Denver off.
- H8crilA 6y agoSuch a good use of their inflated stock price for an all-stock transaction. Go, NVIDIA!
- manquer 6y agoSoftBank would want cash, they need to reduce their debt load , that’s pretty much they are considering this price in the first place
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- H8crilA 6y agoFortunately there's a market for stocks.
- manquer 6y agoThere is no easy for market for 32b of any stock . You cannot just make sell order for that qty and expect that Order to be filled. That stock market is also there for ARM stocks . There is no need to trade for nvidia shares at an undesirable price if there is no immediate cash in it. Nvidia could potentially raise money from an FPO or similar instruments and leverage advantageous stock price they have, I.e. issue lesser newer stock than they would have at a lower price ,but only way SoftBank will consider a deal is if they get cash
- valuearb 6y agoSure you can, someone will buy that $32B in nVidia stock for $20B. Which is still more than ARM is worth.
- H8crilA 6y agoThere actually is. For example - on the last annual Berkshire shareholders meeting Buffett was talking about how easy it was for them to unload billions worth of airlines, 100% of their holding. On a typical single day $4B worth of NVIDA stock is traded.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Keyframe 6y agoIt's Nvidia circling back for a kill on intel. They didn't go head to head, even they wanted to. Instead they built a completely different space within data centers for them, got a foothold, expanded (mellanox) and now going for the missing piece, which will also allow them to expand the battleground with intel outside of datacenters. Interesting times and Nvidia, so far, showed they know their strategic moves.
- AsyncAwait 6y agoNVidia is awful when it comes to FLOSS support. If they get ARM, at least it may accelerate RISC V developments.
- rjsw 6y agoARM isn't great, I don't see much difference in GPU documentation between the two.
- robert_foss 6y agoThis is true and fair. However ARM does a _lot_ of ecosystem open source support for their ISAs.
- monadic2 6y agoARM makes GPUs? I’m holding a reference copy of aarch64 in my hands and I’ve written half an assembler from it. Granted SoCs often are just as bad as nvidia, but that’s not ARM’s fault or problem, really.
- shmerl 6y agoWith Nvidia's nasty anti-competitive and lock-in attitudes, this doesn't bode anything good.
- walterbell 6y ago> Nvidia is the only suitor in concrete discussions with SoftBank, according to the people. Would Arm stakeholders (i.e. much of the computer industry) prefer an IPO? In 2017, Softbank's Vision Fund owned 25% of Arm and 4.9% of Nvidia, i.e. these are not historically neutral parties, https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/07/softbank-nvidia-vision-fund/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/07/softbank-nvidia-vision-fun... After WeWork imploded, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-23/how-do-you-like-we-now https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-23/how-do... > Neumann created a company that destroyed value at a blistering pace and nonetheless extracted a billion dollars for himself. He lit $10 billion of SoftBank’s money on fire and then went back to them and demanded a 10% commission. What an absolute legend. Is the global industry (cloud, PC, peripheral, mobile, embedded, IoT, wearable, automotive, robotics, broadband, camera/VR/TV, energy, medical, aerospace and military) loss of Arm independence our only societal solution to a failed experiment in real-estate financial engineering?
- nojito 6y agoIPO'ing a business that only makes revenue from licensing arrangements is a recipe for disaster
- borramakot 6y agoHow so? It seems like lots of businesses run successfully on that model for indefinite periods.
- kelnos 6y agoIf a business is viable as a private company (as ARM certainly is), why wouldn't they be viable as a public company?
- Followerer 6y agoARM was publicly traded between 1998 and 2016. In that period its value multiplied about 25x, not counting the premium of the acquisition. Could you elaborate, please? Where do you see the disaster? (Honest question).
- DCKing 6y agoThis is quite concerning honestly. I don't mind ARM being acquired, and I don't mind Nvidia acquiring things. But I'm concerned about this combination. Nvidia is a pretty hostile company to others in the market. They have a track record of vigorously pushing their market dominance and their own way of doing things. They view making custom designs as beneath them. Their custom console GPU designs - in the original Xbox, in the Playstation 3 - were considered a failure because of terrible cooporation with Nvidia [0]. Apple is probably more demanding than other PC builders and have completely fallen out with them. Nvidia has famously failed to cooporate with the Linux community on the standardized graphics stack supported by Intel and AMD and keeps pushing propietary stuff. There are more examples. It's hard to not make "hostile" too much of a value judgement. Nvidia has been an extremely successful company because of it too. It's alright if it's not in their corporate culture to work well with others. Clearly it's working, and Nvidia for all their faults is still innovating. But this culture won't fly well if your core business is developing chip designs for others. It's also a problem if you are the gatekeeper of a CPU instruction set that a metric ton of other infrastructure increasingly depends on. I really, really hope ARM's current business will be allowed to run independently as ARM knows how to do this and Nvidia has time and time again shown not to understand this at all. But I'm pessimistic about that. I'm afraid Nvidia will gut ARM the company, the ARM architectures, and the ARM instruction set in the long run. [0]: An interesting counterpoint would the Nintendo Switch running on an Nvidia Tegra hardware, but all the evidence points to that this chip is a 100% vanilla Nvidia Tegra X1 that Nvidia was already selling themselves (to the point its bootloader could be unlocked like a standard Tegra, leading to the Switch Fusee-Gelee exploit).
- Symmetry 6y agoAlso, it must be hard to trust them as the creator of the designs you use if they also compete with you directly in the market.
- jonny_eh 6y agoAt this point, do Apple and Qualcomm even depend on ARM's new designs? In the same way that AMD branched from Intel but are still mostly compatible, can the same thing happen in mobile chipsets?
- ProRapeVideo 6y agoOh fuck this is not going to go down-well; ironically. Holy fuck. We'll see the fucking "NVIDIA" fuckmind trademark in our audible and green-raped eyes and minds for however rapetrademarks last. We are being raped dudes and dudettes. RapeVide'yall, let that fucking sink in. Fucking Nvidia fsggots
- thehappypm 6y agoSlightly unrelated, but I did a quick look on Wikipedia and both Intel and Nvidia are based in Santa Clara, CA? Is there history there?
- mattferderer 6y agoHow much history do you want? Start here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Semiconductor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Semiconductor This might also be of geographical value - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California
- Symmetry 6y agoThe Santa Clara valley is also known as Silicon Valley.
- TomVDB 6y agoThis 1.7 mile walk starts at Intel's HQ, goes past AMD's HQ and stops at Nvidia's HQ: https://goo.gl/maps/DkbETh1V1ucSqtPb7 https://goo.gl/maps/DkbETh1V1ucSqtPb7
- figgyc 6y agoPeople in this thread discuss what Nvidia would do with ARM after they buy it, but I'm honestly not even sure if anyone even could buy ARM to be honest. The article barely even mentions the anti-competitive nightmare that it would probably become, and if Nvidia agreed to let everyone else keep buying licenses and designs as it is now, then you have to argue is there any reason for them to buy ARM at all?
- nojito 6y ago>then you have to argue is there any reason for them to buy ARM at all? ARM provides them a stable, consistent, and regular revenue stream.
- klelatti 6y agoThis is troubling. At the moment ARM lives or dies by the success of the ecosystem as a whole. When its owned by a customer this may no longer be the case and there are huge potential conflicts of interest. For example, would an Nvidia owned ARM offer a new license to a firm that would be a significant competitor to an existing Nvidia product (eg Tegra)? Will Nvidia hinder the development efforts of other competitors? Will Nvidia give itself access to new designs first? How will it maintain appropriate barriers to the flow of information about competitors new designs to its own design teams? I can see this getting very significant regulatory scrutiny and rightly so.
- novaRom 6y agoOnce ARM is American it will escalate trade war with China. There's no way China can quickly create any competitive platform.
- phendrenad2 6y agoIs nvidia seriously going to get into ARM business? Are they going to grok the business of embedded development and microcontrollers? I can't help but think that this would mean the end of ARM as we know it.
- MikeCapone 6y agoThe Arm people would still be there running the company, it's not like they all get fired and overnight it's Nvidia people with no experience doing it.
- varispeed 6y agoI wouldn't be surprised if they bought it to extinguish it, probably a proxy buy by Intel.
- valuearb 6y agoSuper shocked anyone would pay more then $10B based on their financials.
- EdwinLarkin 6y agoHmm did not Softbank buy ARM for 32bn? That investment did not pay off I guess..
- Donckele 6y agoThats a lot of money and must be very tempting. Lets hope that ARM doesn’t get bullied to bite the apple. Nvidia sees the writing on the wall with GPUs and knows it must acquire the future king of CPUs to survive.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoAt first my mind read this as AMD, reaction: ‘meh’ Then I realized it was ARM, ‘wow’
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoOh no, look what have you done WeWork. Who would have thought that rich kids burning VC money, who themselves were running elaborate ponzi scheme would end-up as a threat to the democracy of computing. Ofcourse U.S. Govt. wouldn't have problems with this unlike Broadcom-Qualcomm deal, on the contrary this will put American semiconductor industry in a more dominant position. RISC-V is the only hope for the rest of the world now.
- barnabee 6y agoJust a thought but if big tech that controls entire markets is bad now (apparently some law makers seem to think so), maybe don’t let this happen.
- tengbretson 6y agoI hope that this ends up giving Nvidia enough leverage over Qualcomm that they can start putting Tegra chips in smartphones again without cellular radio patent disputes.
- varbhat 6y ago1) Nvidia my produce good performing GPUs, but it doesn't provide Open Source Drivers and it is not so cooperative with Linux Desktop. Also it is quite buggy. 2) Due to (1) , i believe that this acquisition might promote locked down devices. I don't want this situation to occur. 3) This acquisition may have some affect on Apple since Apple is transitioning to ARM Hardware. If this is the case, Apple may even transit to some other Hardware architecture like RISC-V or OpenPower once again.
- gok 6y agoKinda curious if this would mean the end of Nvidia's CPU group and/or ARM's GPU group or if there would be a peaceful integration.
- fataliss 6y agoWell, I guess that's one way to keep Apple as a customer :P
- georgeburdell 6y agoThis might be a lucky break for Intel. If NVidia buys ARM, this might slow the ARM ecosystem's intrusion on Wintel. As others have noted, NVidia will probably go and develop a data center CPU to complement their other offerings. Qualcomm already tried that and failed though [0], so NVidia's effort may meet the same fate several years from now. Regardless, Intel would get a little more time to work through its process problems. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/10/qualcomm_layoffs/ https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/10/qualcomm_layoffs/
- xbmcuser 6y agoLooking at how qualcomm has a virtual monopoly for mobile processors nvidia buying arm and getting back into the mobile space might be a good thing. Though I think this is more a play for desktop processors intel is getting into discrete cpu market Amd already is. Every year integrated gpus are getting better at giving good enough performance so the market for discrete gpus will decrease in the end Nvidia might need its own cpu to stay relevant.
- mkl 6y ago> qualcomm has a virtual monopoly for mobile processors Not even close. Qualcomm has about a third of the market: https://cntechpost.com/2020/03/24/samsung-surpasses-apple-to-become-3rd-largest-mobile-processor-maker/ https://cntechpost.com/2020/03/24/samsung-surpasses-apple-to...
- pier25 6y agoI can see why Apple wouldn't want to buy ARM since that would put them in very delicate position, but I'd be surprised if Intel or AMD weren't trying to buy ARM as well.
- m0zg 6y agoNot looking forward to this at all. This is one of the clear-cut cases that should be shut down by antitrust regulators.
- InTheArena 6y agoThis isn't a bad move strategy wise. If the Apple performance is as awesome as is rumoured and hype, there are going to be a lot of people looking for new arm chips, with no obviously ahead players. nVidia has looked a couple of times at building their own x86 core, and ARM cores may be a better bet. At this point - AMD, Intel, Apple are all looking at fully integrated APU/CPU/GPU stacks. That leaves NV out in the cold if they don't do something.
- pyuser583 6y agoWhat’s the word for that thing you get when one part of a duopoly acquires the other? I think there’s a board game about it ...
- 0x0 6y agoWow, way to stick it to Apple!
- geogra4 6y agoIf this goes through would that mean that Huawei can no longer use ARM chips?
- minusSeven 6y agoDunno what Softbank is doing here, I thought ARM is the kind of company they would want to keep.
- findingnaeemo 6y agoIs there a way to get rid of these paywalls? So annoying to click on a popular post with plenty of upvotes only to find it is paywall-restricted. Incognito mode works but inefficient.
- novaRom 6y agoThis acquisition is in US interests and can be supported by US government. They try to stop leaking silicone industry in general (famous CHIPS act), and block Huawei and its partners.
- monadic2 6y agoWow this is really not good.
- cromwellian 6y agoI think people are overlooking a worse outcome. Chinese companies have already bought the Asian subsidiary of ARM, if China bought ARM who knows how they would retaliate with it given the current attacks on Huawei. They might use it as leverage. realistically we need an open unowned architecture like RISC-V, because whoever buys ARM will cause concern given how hyperconpetitive mobile is, the incentive to abuse the ownership is high. We really want to avoid another Oracle/Java scenario as well.
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- jdright 6y agoTo me, and probably a lot other people, this means the death of ARM. Not literally, but practically.
- tus88 6y agoThis seems stupid and pointless. Although I would probably buy a Nvidia mobile phone :D
- person_of_color 6y agoThis will be a boon for RISC-V
- ritwik310 6y agowtf! x_x
- ritwik310 6y agoWhat if apple aquires it first! :p
- jarrell_mark 6y agoIntel should start investing in RISC-V or opening up their own architecture. This is the only way they will keep market share in the next 10 years.
- spicyramen 6y agoIn the ML GPU they are a monopoly but man they do a great job providing support for TF or Pytorch where AMD hasn't invested. So in Cloud Nvidia is the only way to go
- anoncow 6y agoWhat if Intel bought ARM? Could that work for Intel? Do they have the resources?
- dirtyid 6y agoWonder how much of this is pushed by US policy to secure IC dominance like getting TSMC to build US fab. Barr was floating the idea of getting Cisco to acquire Ericsson for 5G, not a stretch to also ask Nvidia to buy ARM.
- andy_ppp 6y agoWell nvidia need to create an operating system now and we could end up with three ecosystems that could be competitive with each other. Good for consumers I say.
- aleppe7766 6y agoDoesn’t sound legit. ARM was purchased by SoftBank in 2016 for 32bn USD.and from then it might have grown more than 20% per year. Selling a growing company with bright perspectives today for the same price you purchased it 4 years ago makes no sense, even for a struggling Softbank.
- plekter 6y agoI do wonder what this means for Arm's Mali GPUs if this goes through.
- thewindow1 6y agoWouldn't Alphabet be able to buy Arm. I think as long as it is separate from Google it should be fine. It would be the company starting with A in their portfolio.
- McP 6y agoThe name is officially "Arm", not "ARM", and that's been the case for exactly 3 years now. Bloomberg has it correct in the article.
- opless 6y agoBest thing for ARM to do is IPO. As far as I understand this is all rumour still.