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> Apple: obviously not. but then, ARM charges an arm and a leg and they have a history of architecture swaps... Given Apple’s very special relationship with AR

> Apple: obviously not. but then, ARM charges an arm and a leg and they have a history of architecture swaps... Given Apple’s very special relationship with ARM, and their culture of control, and them literally being a flagship standard bearer on the performance segment I’d be shocked if they paid anywhere near market rate (not that their licensing is even market-available but you get what I’m saying).

delfinom 3y ago
I imagine Apple has an ironclad contract with ARM that likes of which everyone else would be jelly. Even some of the internal architecture changes have long been forbidden by ARM licensing. Not to mention, ARM is about to destroy the market by trying to backtrack on all their licensing. They now want per device royalties paid by the device manufacturer instead of chip maker to get a larger slice of the pie. And they are basically moving to kill Qualcomm's licenses and IP out of spite in a lawsuit.
- benj111 3y ago
  Do apple even pay licencing fees? I thought they could basically do whatever they wanted with the instruction set.
  - masklinn 3y ago
    They have a lot of freedom which nobody else has access to, but according to arm’s SEC fillings they are a paying client
p_l 3y ago
Apple pays nothing, because they do not license ARM cores in any way, instead having a full royalty-free license for ARM ISA (and afaik covering updates too) since before ARM got big. Samsung used to have one, no idea if they still have one, but the mismanagement of the unit that built their custom ARM designs might have killed the whole venture.
- sgerenser 3y ago
  Apple does not pay nothing. Read recent pre-IPO Arm SEC filing (not a lot of details, but enough to reveal they clearly aren’t paying nothing).
  - monocasa 3y ago
    The rumor is that Apple owns part of AArch64 itself, and it's relationship with ARM is more like the Intel/AMD relationship. That would mean that at a minimum they still pay for some of the Cortex M cores that are in their SoCs.
  - p_l 3y ago
    Ah, good source to check, thanks.
- klelatti 3y ago
  This isn’t true. Apple paid licence fees for the very first ARM Ltd processors - ARM would have had no income if they hadn’t. And there is no way that any company gets a ‘forever’ and ‘all future IP’ license just because they had an early shareholding.
  - wyldfire 3y ago
    The "nothing" probably refers to royalties which is true for architectural licensees like Apple. They instead pay for that license which is not sold per-CPU.
    - klelatti 3y ago
      It was very clear that they meant nothing at all. > Apple pays nothing, because they do not license ARM cores in any way, instead having a full royalty-free license for ARM ISA (and afaik covering updates too) since before ARM got big.
      - p_l 3y ago

delfinom 3y ago

I imagine Apple has an ironclad contract with ARM that likes of which everyone else would be jelly. Even some of the internal architecture changes have long been forbidden by ARM licensing. Not to mention, ARM is about to destroy the market by trying to backtrack on all their licensing. They now want per device royalties paid by the device manufacturer instead of chip maker to get a larger slice of the pie. And they are basically moving to kill Qualcomm's licenses and IP out of spite in a lawsuit.

benj111 3y ago
Do apple even pay licencing fees? I thought they could basically do whatever they wanted with the instruction set.
- masklinn 3y ago
  They have a lot of freedom which nobody else has access to, but according to arm’s SEC fillings they are a paying client

p_l 3y ago

Apple pays nothing, because they do not license ARM cores in any way, instead having a full royalty-free license for ARM ISA (and afaik covering updates too) since before ARM got big. Samsung used to have one, no idea if they still have one, but the mismanagement of the unit that built their custom ARM designs might have killed the whole venture.

sgerenser 3y ago
Apple does not pay nothing. Read recent pre-IPO Arm SEC filing (not a lot of details, but enough to reveal they clearly aren’t paying nothing).
- monocasa 3y ago
  The rumor is that Apple owns part of AArch64 itself, and it's relationship with ARM is more like the Intel/AMD relationship. That would mean that at a minimum they still pay for some of the Cortex M cores that are in their SoCs.
- p_l 3y ago
  Ah, good source to check, thanks.
klelatti 3y ago
This isn’t true. Apple paid licence fees for the very first ARM Ltd processors - ARM would have had no income if they hadn’t. And there is no way that any company gets a ‘forever’ and ‘all future IP’ license just because they had an early shareholding.
- wyldfire 3y ago
  The "nothing" probably refers to royalties which is true for architectural licensees like Apple. They instead pay for that license which is not sold per-CPU.
  - klelatti 3y ago
    It was very clear that they meant nothing at all. > Apple pays nothing, because they do not license ARM cores in any way, instead having a full royalty-free license for ARM ISA (and afaik covering updates too) since before ARM got big.
    - p_l 3y ago