7 ms·

Agreed, this reminds of the AMD acquisition of ATI a couple decades ago. Almost killed AMD and now Nvidia is thinking about doing the same? Technically the reve

Agreed, this reminds of the AMD acquisition of ATI a couple decades ago. Almost killed AMD and now Nvidia is thinking about doing the same? Technically the reverse since Nvidia is the GPU company acquiring a CPU company. At the same time, Nvidia may be trying to hedge its future as its other competitors (Intel, AMD, even Apple) all have their own CPU and GPU designs. The animosity with Apple has shown the power dynamics and the high stakes.

ginko 6y ago
I believe grandparent is referring to ARM's Mali GPU.
IntelMiner 6y ago
Apple's CPU's are still ARM64 cores at heart, even if heavily modified A thought I've been kicking about, though I fully understand it to be incredibly unlikely would be if NVIDIA would simply terminate any license Apple has to use ARM at all. The move would arguably be done out of pure spite. "payback" for the GeForce 8600M issues that cost them 200~ million and $3 billion in market cap in part due to Apple pushing for a recall. Apple also seemingly pushed Nvidia utterly out the door, going as far as to completely block NVIDIA from providing drivers for users to use their products even in "eGPU" external enclosures on newer versions of MacOS. Even if only a minority of Apple users ever bought Nvidia cards, being completely banned from an OEM's entire lineup would likely ruffle feathers
- fulafel 6y ago
  Aren't you mixing ISA with implementation here? Or do Apple's CPUs really contain Arm's logic contrary to public info eg on Wikipedia?
  - IntelMiner 6y ago
    To my knowledge, "Apple Silicon" or what ever you want to call it is an ARM64 ISA, with Apple extensions Third parties have been able to get IOS running in an emulator for security research and Android(!) has even been ported to the IOS devices that contain the "Checkrain" Boot ROM exploit (though with things like GPU, Wi-Fi etc in varying states of completion)
    - fulafel 6y ago
      ISA is just about the instruction set that the silicon is designed to interpret. Aww compatibility does not imply any shared heritage in the silicon between apple and arm LTD cores. Just like AMD and Intel share no silicon design even though they are both sell processors implementing the AMD64 ISA. (The silicon implementation of an isa is referred to as the microarchitecture btw)
      - Teknoman117 6y ago
        Right, but the ARM ISA is covered by various patents, so you have to get a license for it. ARM has aggressively shut down any open efforts to make ARM compatible cores (without licenses).
  - Teknoman117 6y ago
    You have to license the ARM ISA as well, you can't just freely implement it. IANAL, but as far as US law is concerned, I don't think you're violating copyright by cloning an ISA, but if that ISA is covered by any patents, you'd be fairly screwed without licensing. ARM definitely considers there to be enforceable patents on their ISA (just follow their aggressive assault on any open source HDL projects that are ARM compatible). If Nvidia bought ARM and decided to find some legal way to terminate the contract with Apple out of spite, Apple would have to find another ISA for their "Apple Silicon".
    - corin_ 6y ago
      If Apple are worried about that prospect, couldn't they easily outbid Nvidia to buy ARM?
      - justaguy88 6y ago
        Or just buy Nvidia
      - Teknoman117 6y ago
        Bloomberg says that SoftBank approached Apple before they approached Nvidia, but who knows.
        corin_ 6y ago
        I should have read the article before commenting! But I guess that means Apple aren't worried, either because their contracts are solid enough and/or they already have backup plans ready that are cheaper than buying ARM. (Or, of course, Apple are making a huge mistake. But seems a bit less likely to me.)
      - ptspin 6y ago
        Theoretically Apple could probably outbid Nvidia, but realistically regulators would never let Apple make that purchase so it's irrelevant that they have the cash to do so.
- satya71 6y ago
  Apple has an "ARM Architecture License". They have a custom implementation that's very different from the reference design (which is why they're miles ahead of other ARM CPU makers). I'm sure the license has contractual obligations that protects Apple. In short, Apple is in no danger, most likely.
- valuearb 6y ago
  Let’s ignore that founding ARM investor Apple has a perpetual license and their own CPU designs. Do you really think NVidia is going to substantially overpay for ARM to then nuke it’s remaining value by going to war on it’s licensees?
- imtringued 6y ago
  You're swallowing the poison pill with pride. The reason why no ARM customer actually wants to buy ARM is because there is almost no way to make money off of it. If you cancel licenses ARM is going to implode and $32 billion worth of value locked up in ARM will vanish into thin air. If you want to extract value out of ARM you'll have to play nice and that is definitively not worth $32 billion either.

ginko 6y ago

I believe grandparent is referring to ARM's Mali GPU.

IntelMiner 6y ago

Apple's CPU's are still ARM64 cores at heart, even if heavily modified A thought I've been kicking about, though I fully understand it to be incredibly unlikely would be if NVIDIA would simply terminate any license Apple has to use ARM at all. The move would arguably be done out of pure spite. "payback" for the GeForce 8600M issues that cost them 200~ million and $3 billion in market cap in part due to Apple pushing for a recall. Apple also seemingly pushed Nvidia utterly out the door, going as far as to completely block NVIDIA from providing drivers for users to use their products even in "eGPU" external enclosures on newer versions of MacOS. Even if only a minority of Apple users ever bought Nvidia cards, being completely banned from an OEM's entire lineup would likely ruffle feathers

fulafel 6y ago
Aren't you mixing ISA with implementation here? Or do Apple's CPUs really contain Arm's logic contrary to public info eg on Wikipedia?
- IntelMiner 6y ago
  To my knowledge, "Apple Silicon" or what ever you want to call it is an ARM64 ISA, with Apple extensions Third parties have been able to get IOS running in an emulator for security research and Android(!) has even been ported to the IOS devices that contain the "Checkrain" Boot ROM exploit (though with things like GPU, Wi-Fi etc in varying states of completion)
  - fulafel 6y ago
    ISA is just about the instruction set that the silicon is designed to interpret. Aww compatibility does not imply any shared heritage in the silicon between apple and arm LTD cores. Just like AMD and Intel share no silicon design even though they are both sell processors implementing the AMD64 ISA. (The silicon implementation of an isa is referred to as the microarchitecture btw)
    - Teknoman117 6y ago
      Right, but the ARM ISA is covered by various patents, so you have to get a license for it. ARM has aggressively shut down any open efforts to make ARM compatible cores (without licenses).
- Teknoman117 6y ago
  You have to license the ARM ISA as well, you can't just freely implement it. IANAL, but as far as US law is concerned, I don't think you're violating copyright by cloning an ISA, but if that ISA is covered by any patents, you'd be fairly screwed without licensing. ARM definitely considers there to be enforceable patents on their ISA (just follow their aggressive assault on any open source HDL projects that are ARM compatible). If Nvidia bought ARM and decided to find some legal way to terminate the contract with Apple out of spite, Apple would have to find another ISA for their "Apple Silicon".
  - corin_ 6y ago
    If Apple are worried about that prospect, couldn't they easily outbid Nvidia to buy ARM?
    - justaguy88 6y ago
      Or just buy Nvidia
    - Teknoman117 6y ago
      Bloomberg says that SoftBank approached Apple before they approached Nvidia, but who knows.
      - corin_ 6y ago
        I should have read the article before commenting! But I guess that means Apple aren't worried, either because their contracts are solid enough and/or they already have backup plans ready that are cheaper than buying ARM. (Or, of course, Apple are making a huge mistake. But seems a bit less likely to me.)
    - ptspin 6y ago
      Theoretically Apple could probably outbid Nvidia, but realistically regulators would never let Apple make that purchase so it's irrelevant that they have the cash to do so.
satya71 6y ago
Apple has an "ARM Architecture License". They have a custom implementation that's very different from the reference design (which is why they're miles ahead of other ARM CPU makers). I'm sure the license has contractual obligations that protects Apple. In short, Apple is in no danger, most likely.
valuearb 6y ago
Let’s ignore that founding ARM investor Apple has a perpetual license and their own CPU designs. Do you really think NVidia is going to substantially overpay for ARM to then nuke it’s remaining value by going to war on it’s licensees?
imtringued 6y ago
You're swallowing the poison pill with pride. The reason why no ARM customer actually wants to buy ARM is because there is almost no way to make money off of it. If you cancel licenses ARM is going to implode and $32 billion worth of value locked up in ARM will vanish into thin air. If you want to extract value out of ARM you'll have to play nice and that is definitively not worth $32 billion either.