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As a NVidia shareholder I'm relieved at this. ARM is clearly less valuable as part of NVidia with all the conflicts of interest that entails than as an indepen

As a NVidia shareholder I'm relieved at this. ARM is clearly less valuable as part of NVidia with all the conflicts of interest that entails than as an independent company. NVidia talked about synergies but they could pursue all of those with an architectural license for far less money. It's actually something of a pattern that most mergers fail to provide synergy and destroy value, it's just that they enlarge the empire of the CEO and so seem attractive from that standpoint.

overview 5y ago
Citrix and Wrike in a nutshell.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Haha what a funny acquisition. There’s no synergy there besides I assume weak attempts at bundling things.
snvzz 5y ago
ARM gets the short end of the stick here. NVIDIA being a well known hostile company, the industry did not miss the news about its ARM purchase intent. And thus they looked for alternatives. That's RISC-V. Today, pretty much every company designing microcontrollers or SoCs is involved with RISC-V. They won't cancel those efforts to embrace ARM again.
- sho_hn 5y ago
  Sad memories of Nokia. The N9 debuted to great reviews and was built on a promising tech stack that continues to outlive it today (Qt, etc.). Repeated takeover attempts and intent by Microsoft, and finally installing an ex-MS VP who cancelled the platform internally before an actual sale to Microsoft, was too much of a distraction. It's hard to survive a bodged takeover attempt, much less an actual takeover.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Indeed. It believe they are a victim of false management decisions (happens). Windows as a mobile system was already on its way out, it seemed they wanted to keep it in the race by buying into Nokia. That said the phones now sold under the Nokia brand are pretty decent.
- mdasen 5y ago
  That's actually an interesting side-effect. What happens to ARM now? New players who are looking for a long-term strategy are looking at RISC-V (as you note) in part due to Nvidia's reputation. Despite the deal being quashed, they're probably going to continue along that route. However, it seems like ARM licensees might also be making plans to become less dependent on ARM (the company). The Nvidia/ARM deal was announced September 2020. Qualcomm announced that it was going to buy Nuvia (founded by ex-Apple Silicon people) in January 2021 along with plans to launch their own internally-designed CPUs (rather than relying on ARM reference designs). I think this is a smart plan regardless of the Nvidia/ARM deal, but creating your own cores means that ARM has little-to-no leverage over you. You don't need their new CPUs. Sure, ARM still updates their architecture periodically, but you can happily continue along making your own CPUs under a perpetual license. Qualcomm is making the jump to its own cores so that it doesn't need ARM reference designs. SoftBank is somewhat souring on ARM since it isn't getting the huge returns it was expecting by owning the CPU that everyone was going to use in the future. Will SoftBank end up short-changing R&D at ARM making their reference cores less competitive with Apple Silicon and future Qualcomm cores? Even if SoftBank was able to sell ARM for $40B, they bought the company for $31-32B in 2016. Basically, the sale meant only 5% annual returns which is pretty bad compared to the huge gains an index fund would have made during that time. I think there's going to be pressure to find a way to squeeze money out of ARM. Heck, with Qualcomm moving away from ARM reference cores, that's a lot less revenue for ARM. Even if Qualcomm cores aren't better, Qualcomm is still a huge portion of the mobile CPU market. Every ARM CPU maker that starts making their own custom cores means less revenue for the reference designs and less reason for ARM to invest in those reference designs. If ARM starts reducing investment in their reference designs a bit, that will put pressure on more companies to create their own custom cores. The sky isn't falling and I don't want this comment to sound like that. I think ARM has a fine, sustainable business. At the same time, it seems like there will be pressure from SoftBank given the lackluster returns even with the Nvidia deal and Qualcomm buying Nuvia puts further pressure on ARM and it's hard to justify a major investment in something that is likely to continue having lackluster returns.
  - otherotherchris 5y ago
    Nvidia is the only credible buyer for ARM. Everyone that wants an arch license has one (Intel, AMD, Apple, QC, Mediatek, Broadcom, Marvel, Huawei, Samsung, etc) and doesn't have to put down cash, they can just poach ARMs best chip designers away from them. ARM gets to strangle the $10 landfill router market until RISC-V takes over.
- klelatti 5y ago
  I think it’s reasonably clear SoftBank’s stewardship of Arm has been poor - sure they have invested but the Arm China move backfired badly and this Nvidia uncertainty has also hindered Arm’s development.
- sjtindell 5y ago
  As an outsider, it looks like RISC-V is ipv6. It’s always coming, everyone’s interested…but nothing.
  - cbsmith 5y ago
    I dunnoh. IPv6 is pretty widely distributed at this point: https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html On the other hand, RISC-V seems to be used so far primarily as a stalking horse to keep ARM in line.
    - viraptor 5y ago
      IPv6 is working so well that people often miss the fact it's being used all over the world. Which is probably the greatest endorsement for consumer side IPv6.
- cbsmith 5y ago
  > ARM gets the short end of the stick here. In terms of "if the deal fails", yes. If the deal succeeds, they made out like bandits.
- bitwize 5y ago
  I think Apple should buy ARM. Then they will own the entire iPhone and Mac tech stack -- right down to the ISA. It's hard to think of a more competent steward for the technology than Apple.
  - yencabulator 5y ago
    That would make even more companies bail from ARM to RISC-V than NVidia. While NVidia tends to be hostile and lay out traps for competition, Apple downright shuts down anything external facing of the companies they acquire. Just as the parent is saying, that would make ARM less valuable, for sure.
    - Melatonic 5y ago
      Especially less valuable to mega big box datacenters where ARM is seeing big inroads.
  - mr_toad 5y ago
    They don’t need it. They have a perpetual license to the ISA, and they’re more than capable of designing their own chips.
- b20000 5y ago
  RISC-V still does not offer an alternative to high-performance ARM SoCs such as the A17.
- enos_feedler 5y ago
  If ARM IPOs in a reasonable timeframe they will be fine. Hopefully a bunch of big customers take large stakes (apple, qualcomm, etc).
- simonh 5y ago
  ARM’s business is just fine, they’re a healthy company with fantastic technology and happy customers. Maybe they were overvalued by SoftBank, but that’s Softbank’s problem. It doesn’t mean ARM is a bad business. They’re just not growing spectacularly, but maybe that’s ok.
  - adventured 5y ago
    The British should try to coax Softbank into doing an ARM IPO and work to build up a more significant native semiconductor ecosystem around the company. It might be Britain's last chance at that, a company like ARM doesn't come around very often and you need something integral like that to build around as a core. The US should tandem with Britain on that (investment, political support, whatever is needed), given the close nature of the allied relationship (and since if the US can't own it the next best thing might be for Britain to continue to indefinitely).
    - skinnymuch 5y ago
      SoftBank wants to do an IPO. They have no financial reason to hold on to all of ARM or even a majority of it in the near to medium future. Likewise, SoftBank def doesn’t want to put any money into ARM any more.
    - simonh 5y ago
      ARM has I think 2/3 of it's employees in the UK, mainly Cambridge, and they're expanding the campus there. The Semiconductor Physics Group at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University is at the cutting edge globally with 18 PhD projects currently in flight. Guess where scads of ARM's top scientists are recruited from? ARM and the University are joined at the hip. That company's not going anywhere.
monocasa 5y ago
Nvidia also clearly already has an architectural license for their Denver cores and derivatives.

overview 5y ago

Citrix and Wrike in a nutshell.

skinnymuch 5y ago
Haha what a funny acquisition. There’s no synergy there besides I assume weak attempts at bundling things.

snvzz 5y ago

ARM gets the short end of the stick here. NVIDIA being a well known hostile company, the industry did not miss the news about its ARM purchase intent. And thus they looked for alternatives. That's RISC-V. Today, pretty much every company designing microcontrollers or SoCs is involved with RISC-V. They won't cancel those efforts to embrace ARM again.

sho_hn 5y ago
Sad memories of Nokia. The N9 debuted to great reviews and was built on a promising tech stack that continues to outlive it today (Qt, etc.). Repeated takeover attempts and intent by Microsoft, and finally installing an ex-MS VP who cancelled the platform internally before an actual sale to Microsoft, was too much of a distraction. It's hard to survive a bodged takeover attempt, much less an actual takeover.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Indeed. It believe they are a victim of false management decisions (happens). Windows as a mobile system was already on its way out, it seemed they wanted to keep it in the race by buying into Nokia. That said the phones now sold under the Nokia brand are pretty decent.
mdasen 5y ago
That's actually an interesting side-effect. What happens to ARM now? New players who are looking for a long-term strategy are looking at RISC-V (as you note) in part due to Nvidia's reputation. Despite the deal being quashed, they're probably going to continue along that route. However, it seems like ARM licensees might also be making plans to become less dependent on ARM (the company). The Nvidia/ARM deal was announced September 2020. Qualcomm announced that it was going to buy Nuvia (founded by ex-Apple Silicon people) in January 2021 along with plans to launch their own internally-designed CPUs (rather than relying on ARM reference designs). I think this is a smart plan regardless of the Nvidia/ARM deal, but creating your own cores means that ARM has little-to-no leverage over you. You don't need their new CPUs. Sure, ARM still updates their architecture periodically, but you can happily continue along making your own CPUs under a perpetual license. Qualcomm is making the jump to its own cores so that it doesn't need ARM reference designs. SoftBank is somewhat souring on ARM since it isn't getting the huge returns it was expecting by owning the CPU that everyone was going to use in the future. Will SoftBank end up short-changing R&D at ARM making their reference cores less competitive with Apple Silicon and future Qualcomm cores? Even if SoftBank was able to sell ARM for $40B, they bought the company for $31-32B in 2016. Basically, the sale meant only 5% annual returns which is pretty bad compared to the huge gains an index fund would have made during that time. I think there's going to be pressure to find a way to squeeze money out of ARM. Heck, with Qualcomm moving away from ARM reference cores, that's a lot less revenue for ARM. Even if Qualcomm cores aren't better, Qualcomm is still a huge portion of the mobile CPU market. Every ARM CPU maker that starts making their own custom cores means less revenue for the reference designs and less reason for ARM to invest in those reference designs. If ARM starts reducing investment in their reference designs a bit, that will put pressure on more companies to create their own custom cores. The sky isn't falling and I don't want this comment to sound like that. I think ARM has a fine, sustainable business. At the same time, it seems like there will be pressure from SoftBank given the lackluster returns even with the Nvidia deal and Qualcomm buying Nuvia puts further pressure on ARM and it's hard to justify a major investment in something that is likely to continue having lackluster returns.
- otherotherchris 5y ago
  Nvidia is the only credible buyer for ARM. Everyone that wants an arch license has one (Intel, AMD, Apple, QC, Mediatek, Broadcom, Marvel, Huawei, Samsung, etc) and doesn't have to put down cash, they can just poach ARMs best chip designers away from them. ARM gets to strangle the $10 landfill router market until RISC-V takes over.
klelatti 5y ago
I think it’s reasonably clear SoftBank’s stewardship of Arm has been poor - sure they have invested but the Arm China move backfired badly and this Nvidia uncertainty has also hindered Arm’s development.
sjtindell 5y ago
As an outsider, it looks like RISC-V is ipv6. It’s always coming, everyone’s interested…but nothing.
- cbsmith 5y ago
  I dunnoh. IPv6 is pretty widely distributed at this point: https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html On the other hand, RISC-V seems to be used so far primarily as a stalking horse to keep ARM in line.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    IPv6 is working so well that people often miss the fact it's being used all over the world. Which is probably the greatest endorsement for consumer side IPv6.
cbsmith 5y ago
> ARM gets the short end of the stick here. In terms of "if the deal fails", yes. If the deal succeeds, they made out like bandits.
bitwize 5y ago
I think Apple should buy ARM. Then they will own the entire iPhone and Mac tech stack -- right down to the ISA. It's hard to think of a more competent steward for the technology than Apple.
- yencabulator 5y ago
  That would make even more companies bail from ARM to RISC-V than NVidia. While NVidia tends to be hostile and lay out traps for competition, Apple downright shuts down anything external facing of the companies they acquire. Just as the parent is saying, that would make ARM less valuable, for sure.
  - Melatonic 5y ago
    Especially less valuable to mega big box datacenters where ARM is seeing big inroads.
- mr_toad 5y ago
  They don’t need it. They have a perpetual license to the ISA, and they’re more than capable of designing their own chips.
b20000 5y ago
RISC-V still does not offer an alternative to high-performance ARM SoCs such as the A17.
enos_feedler 5y ago
If ARM IPOs in a reasonable timeframe they will be fine. Hopefully a bunch of big customers take large stakes (apple, qualcomm, etc).
simonh 5y ago
ARM’s business is just fine, they’re a healthy company with fantastic technology and happy customers. Maybe they were overvalued by SoftBank, but that’s Softbank’s problem. It doesn’t mean ARM is a bad business. They’re just not growing spectacularly, but maybe that’s ok.
- adventured 5y ago
  The British should try to coax Softbank into doing an ARM IPO and work to build up a more significant native semiconductor ecosystem around the company. It might be Britain's last chance at that, a company like ARM doesn't come around very often and you need something integral like that to build around as a core. The US should tandem with Britain on that (investment, political support, whatever is needed), given the close nature of the allied relationship (and since if the US can't own it the next best thing might be for Britain to continue to indefinitely).
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    SoftBank wants to do an IPO. They have no financial reason to hold on to all of ARM or even a majority of it in the near to medium future. Likewise, SoftBank def doesn’t want to put any money into ARM any more.
  - simonh 5y ago
    ARM has I think 2/3 of it's employees in the UK, mainly Cambridge, and they're expanding the campus there. The Semiconductor Physics Group at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University is at the cutting edge globally with 18 PhD projects currently in flight. Guess where scads of ARM's top scientists are recruited from? ARM and the University are joined at the hip. That company's not going anywhere.

monocasa 5y ago

Nvidia also clearly already has an architectural license for their Denver cores and derivatives.