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They have no better choice. Name me, today, a desktop class ARM SoC that isn't made by Apple and represents the median performance band of the class. Fundament

They have no better choice. Name me, today, a desktop class ARM SoC that isn't made by Apple and represents the median performance band of the class. Fundamentally, ARM Holdings is what Antitrust legislation was supposed to break down. They own the "ARM" name and control who can license the ARM IP and most importantly, how. Ampere, the folks behind a lot of ARM servers, are by contract barred from getting into the market of making ARM chips for phones, desktops, or otherwise. That's the form of their license: Server-grade 96-core behemoths running at 3+Ghz and with the thermal output of a small space heater. ARM holdings sets all sorts of weird restrictions and forces market segmentation to make sure that nobody "Accidentally" makes something that they don't immediately approve of. Qualcomm is basically locked into making phone SoCs for all eternity until they renegotiate their license with ARM holdings. They're in a shit situation because they have competition all over the place (Allwinner, Rockchip, a legacy Intel series, NXP, and Samsung to name a few), letting ARMHoldings bully them into not making something that rocks the boat too hard. Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license them desktop grade chips. You see, Apple has been a license holder for ARM for a bit now (with the Ax series chips) and makes up, ballpark, 15% of worldwide phones and now >50% of US phones. Apple had already idly said "we could... you know, not use an integrated solution" when they fiddled with Intel's radio baseband. For ARM to try and sue Apple for breach of contract for developing the Mx series of desktop class ARM processors and get away with it, they'd be putting their market share dominance in four different major markets at risk. Qualcomm can't do that. So that leaves Microsoft, who does not want to get into the processor fabrication business and who is still reeling over the antitrust lawsuit 20 years ago (which, I'll point out, was mostly over a shared text mangling library, for what it's worth) out in the dust looking for options, and the option they get is "Whatever Qualcomm will ship them."

dtx1 4y ago
Let me play my tiny violin for the Gigacorporation Microsoft that was so unfairly treated by ARM that they just had to take "Whatever Qualcomm will ship them". Poor Multi Billion Dollar, they never had a chance to compete on a fair playing ground. Nah, this is just organizational incompetence. The same reason we got cortana, windows 8 or adds in the start bar.
IceWreck 4y ago
> Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license them desktop grade chips Afaik Apple has an Architecture License which means they can do anything they want. They were one of the companies who co-founded ARM.
blibble 4y ago
> Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license them desktop grade chips. You see, Apple has been a license holder for ARM for a bit now apple was part of the original ARM joint venture and gave it its initial capital it's been there since day 0
kitsunesoba 4y ago
> Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license them desktop grade chips. You see, Apple has been a license holder for ARM for a bit now (with the Ax series chips) and makes up, ballpark, 15% of worldwide phones and now >50% of US phones. Apple had already idly said "we could... you know, not use an integrated solution" when they fiddled with Intel's radio baseband. > For ARM to try and sue Apple for breach of contract for developing the Mx series of desktop class ARM processors and get away with it, they'd be putting their market share dominance in four different major markets at risk. As I understand, Apple has a special license with a lot more leeway than those held by other companies thanks to Apple having been one of ARM's founders[0], so they may not have had to do any negotiations at all since they had the rights from the get-go. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_(company)#Founding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_(company)#Founding
tiahura 4y ago
The architecture license was acquired in 2008. Is there any evidence that anyone has been refused a license to develop a desktop arm cpu?
- MikusR 4y ago
  Qualcomm is currently being sued by ARM for daring to make a core thats faster than the ARM cortex
Macha 4y ago
> grade 96-core behemoths running at 3+Ghz and with the thermal output of a small space heater. I mean, have you seen some of the latest desktop-grade hardware? I have had space heaters with less heat output than a 4090 at full tilt.

dtx1 4y ago

Let me play my tiny violin for the Gigacorporation Microsoft that was so unfairly treated by ARM that they just had to take "Whatever Qualcomm will ship them". Poor Multi Billion Dollar, they never had a chance to compete on a fair playing ground. Nah, this is just organizational incompetence. The same reason we got cortana, windows 8 or adds in the start bar.

IceWreck 4y ago

> Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license them desktop grade chips Afaik Apple has an Architecture License which means they can do anything they want. They were one of the companies who co-founded ARM.

blibble 4y ago

> Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license them desktop grade chips. You see, Apple has been a license holder for ARM for a bit now apple was part of the original ARM joint venture and gave it its initial capital it's been there since day 0

kitsunesoba 4y ago

> Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license them desktop grade chips. You see, Apple has been a license holder for ARM for a bit now (with the Ax series chips) and makes up, ballpark, 15% of worldwide phones and now >50% of US phones. Apple had already idly said "we could... you know, not use an integrated solution" when they fiddled with Intel's radio baseband. > For ARM to try and sue Apple for breach of contract for developing the Mx series of desktop class ARM processors and get away with it, they'd be putting their market share dominance in four different major markets at risk. As I understand, Apple has a special license with a lot more leeway than those held by other companies thanks to Apple having been one of ARM's founders[0], so they may not have had to do any negotiations at all since they had the rights from the get-go. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_(company)#Founding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_(company)#Founding

tiahura 4y ago

The architecture license was acquired in 2008. Is there any evidence that anyone has been refused a license to develop a desktop arm cpu?

MikusR 4y ago
Qualcomm is currently being sued by ARM for daring to make a core thats faster than the ARM cortex

Macha 4y ago

> grade 96-core behemoths running at 3+Ghz and with the thermal output of a small space heater. I mean, have you seen some of the latest desktop-grade hardware? I have had space heaters with less heat output than a 4090 at full tilt.