4 ms·

SoftBank-owned Arm seeks to raise prices ahead of U.S. IPO

9 points by pavlov 4y ago

pavlov 4y ago
From the FT article: ”These people said Arm planned to stop charging chipmakers royalties for using its designs based on a chip’s value and instead charge device makers based on the value of the device. This should mean the company earns several times more for each design it sells, as the average smartphone is vastly more expensive than a chip.” Good news for RISC-V?
- snvzz 4y ago
  It won't matter at this stage. The decisions are long made by now. The RISC-V migration efforts started, for most companies, as soon as they got a whiff of NVIDIA's ARM deal (irrespective of how that went). Hardware takes time, but RISC-V has shown exponential growth every year since its inception, and as latest RISC-V summit made evident, everybody is on it now. As for the ARM IPO, I feel bad for the suckers that'll buy a now worthless company. It could be turned around if they abandoned the ISA and focused on RISC-V IP like MIPS did. ARM management has demonstrated with their actions that are simply incapable of doing that, or anything else for that matter, to save the company.
  - throwaway4good 4y ago
    A modern smartphone running on riscv is still far far away.
    - snvzz 4y ago
      For some definition of "far far away". CPU-wise, there are cores that match or beat popular ARM designs extensively used in SoCs driving the current generation of smartphones. The Android RISC-V port is now upstream, and it is considered a priority by Google[0]. The JIT support was merged a few weeks after. Their current intent, as I understand it, is to influence RVA23 to ensure it is in good shape, and to make it a requirement for official support (e.g. google play services). The Chinese might, however, jump the gun and release something earlier than that, without google play services, possibly as soon as this year. As for most of the world, based on past latency from spec to hardware, we'll have some phones by 2025 at the earliest, 2026 for sure. By 2027, I expect the majority of phones will have SoCs based on RISC-V, including most flagships. In parallel with the phones, Windows-based laptops with RISC-V CPU will displace the ARM-based ones, with Microsoft also apparently intending RVA23 as requirement, as per RISC-V Summit, RISC-V's CTO talks. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70O_RmTWP58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70O_RmTWP58
      - re-thc 4y ago
        > By 2027, I expect the majority of phones will have SoCs based on RISC-V, including most flagships. And what reason would Apple have to make the switch to RISC-V?
        justinclift 4y ago
        They're pretty clearly meaning non-apple flagship phones, and they did say "most".
        re-thc 4y ago
        Don't see how you get most if you ignore Apple (like it or not). More like "none". Unless Qualcomm vs ARM (over Nuvia) is a total disaster, Qualcomm is not doing RISC-V on phones / servers. That court case is still 2-3 years in the making. What other flagship do we have left to even get close to "most"?
        justinclift 4y ago
        > What other flagship do we have left to even get close to "most"? Everything other than apple? The world is a big place. Apple doesn't rule the world. :p
        re-thc 4y ago
        Everything other than Apple/Qualcomm as a flagship is pretty minor. Most sell more midrange machines. I did mention Qualcomm and after paying for Nuvia I doubt they're switching.
        snvzz 4y ago
        The subject of the lawsuit? It might never see the light of day with an ARM frontend. As for the RISC-V frontend, it must already be many years underway. When they bought Nuvia, they also got their team, imho most valuable part of the acquisition. I expect Qualcomm to be among the first to provide SoCs for RISC-V based Android smartphones and RISC-V based Windows laptops. I also expect them to show up in the datacenter with competitive RISC-V based server chip offerings.
not_enoch_wise 4y ago
Imagine how much better things would have gone with Adam Neumann at the helm!
anonreeeeplor 4y ago
It doesn’t look good at all. - China and Russia carved off at least 30%+ of global AI, MCU, automobile, IoT, cell phone, robots - CHIPS act - RISCV - Global downturn - End of Moore’s Law - Seemingly very low overall datacenter traction after many years - Apple forked the IP - Qualcomm has been handed global 5G, SoC market since China modems and silicon banned, gives them tremendous leverage imo The trade isolationism looks like it will only increase. It feels like the wheels have fallen off and the train is on fire

9 points by pavlov 4y ago

From the FT article: ”These people said Arm planned to stop charging chipmakers royalties for using its designs based on a chip’s value and instead charge device makers based on the value of the device. This should mean the company earns several times more for each design it sells, as the average smartphone is vastly more expensive than a chip.” Good news for RISC-V?

snvzz 4y ago
It won't matter at this stage. The decisions are long made by now. The RISC-V migration efforts started, for most companies, as soon as they got a whiff of NVIDIA's ARM deal (irrespective of how that went). Hardware takes time, but RISC-V has shown exponential growth every year since its inception, and as latest RISC-V summit made evident, everybody is on it now. As for the ARM IPO, I feel bad for the suckers that'll buy a now worthless company. It could be turned around if they abandoned the ISA and focused on RISC-V IP like MIPS did. ARM management has demonstrated with their actions that are simply incapable of doing that, or anything else for that matter, to save the company.
- throwaway4good 4y ago
  A modern smartphone running on riscv is still far far away.
  - snvzz 4y ago
    For some definition of "far far away". CPU-wise, there are cores that match or beat popular ARM designs extensively used in SoCs driving the current generation of smartphones. The Android RISC-V port is now upstream, and it is considered a priority by Google[0]. The JIT support was merged a few weeks after. Their current intent, as I understand it, is to influence RVA23 to ensure it is in good shape, and to make it a requirement for official support (e.g. google play services). The Chinese might, however, jump the gun and release something earlier than that, without google play services, possibly as soon as this year. As for most of the world, based on past latency from spec to hardware, we'll have some phones by 2025 at the earliest, 2026 for sure. By 2027, I expect the majority of phones will have SoCs based on RISC-V, including most flagships. In parallel with the phones, Windows-based laptops with RISC-V CPU will displace the ARM-based ones, with Microsoft also apparently intending RVA23 as requirement, as per RISC-V Summit, RISC-V's CTO talks. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70O_RmTWP58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70O_RmTWP58
    - re-thc 4y ago
      > By 2027, I expect the majority of phones will have SoCs based on RISC-V, including most flagships. And what reason would Apple have to make the switch to RISC-V?
      - justinclift 4y ago
        They're pretty clearly meaning non-apple flagship phones, and they did say "most".
        re-thc 4y ago
        Don't see how you get most if you ignore Apple (like it or not). More like "none". Unless Qualcomm vs ARM (over Nuvia) is a total disaster, Qualcomm is not doing RISC-V on phones / servers. That court case is still 2-3 years in the making. What other flagship do we have left to even get close to "most"?
        justinclift 4y ago
        > What other flagship do we have left to even get close to "most"? Everything other than apple? The world is a big place. Apple doesn't rule the world. :p
        re-thc 4y ago
        Everything other than Apple/Qualcomm as a flagship is pretty minor. Most sell more midrange machines. I did mention Qualcomm and after paying for Nuvia I doubt they're switching.
        snvzz 4y ago
        The subject of the lawsuit? It might never see the light of day with an ARM frontend. As for the RISC-V frontend, it must already be many years underway. When they bought Nuvia, they also got their team, imho most valuable part of the acquisition. I expect Qualcomm to be among the first to provide SoCs for RISC-V based Android smartphones and RISC-V based Windows laptops. I also expect them to show up in the datacenter with competitive RISC-V based server chip offerings.

not_enoch_wise 4y ago

Imagine how much better things would have gone with Adam Neumann at the helm!

anonreeeeplor 4y ago

It doesn’t look good at all. - China and Russia carved off at least 30%+ of global AI, MCU, automobile, IoT, cell phone, robots - CHIPS act - RISCV - Global downturn - End of Moore’s Law - Seemingly very low overall datacenter traction after many years - Apple forked the IP - Qualcomm has been handed global 5G, SoC market since China modems and silicon banned, gives them tremendous leverage imo The trade isolationism looks like it will only increase. It feels like the wheels have fallen off and the train is on fire