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They have made too many bad choices, and everyone else has been eating their lunch for the last few years. They are a non-factor in the mobile space where ARM a
by this_user 2y ago
They have made too many bad choices, and everyone else has been eating their lunch for the last few years. They are a non-factor in the mobile space where ARM architectures dominate. They are a non-factor in the GPU market where NVDA dominates ahead of AMD. They were focused heavily on data centres and desktop/laptop CPUs where ARM is also increasingly making inroads with more efficient designs that deliver comparable performance. They are still struggling with their fab processes, and even they don't have enough money to make the investment needed to catch back up to TSMC. There is a good reason that even Global Foundries has given up on the bleeding edge some time ago.
They are in a deep hole, and it is difficult to see a future where they can restore their former glory in the foreseeable future.
- Workaccount2 2y agoThe US government wants then making SOTA semiconductors. Biden wanted it and I highly suspect Trump will want it too.
- leoc 2y agoI have to wonder if part of this is Intel wanting a Trumpier CEO so it can retain the favour of the US government, while Trump associates Gelsinger with the CHIPS act which he reflexively hates as a Biden thing.
- Workaccount2 2y ago[flagged]
- phkahler 2y agoTraditionally if you wanted SOTA semiconductors you'd go to IBM for the technology and then build your own fab. I'm not sure how true that is today but I wouldn't be surprised if it is.
- my123 2y agoThat's what Rapidus is doing
- kllrnohj 2y ago> where ARM is also increasingly making inroads with more efficient designs that deliver comparable performance. ARM isn't doing any such thing. Apple & Qualcomm are, though. ARM itself if anything looks weak. Their mobile cores have stagnated, their laptop attempts complete failures, and while there's hints of life in data center it also seems mediocre overall.
- rwmj 2y agoDon't forget their "brilliant" strategy of suing their own customers.
- dagmx 2y agoBeing a customer shouldn’t protect a company from lawsuits. ARM feels they have merit here , just like Qualcomm did when they sued Apple. It’s not that rare in the corporate setting to have suits between companies with otherwise amicable relationships.
- rwmj 2y agoThe optics can still be terrible. Qualcomm (or more accurately, Nuvia, the company they acquired) produced some stunning chips with almost unheard of battery life for a laptop, and Arm are suing them to use their own inferior designs. They even tried to have end user laptops recalled and destroyed! There's no world where this looks good for Arm.
- dagmx 2y agoThere’s a very clear bias and idolization in this comment of yours which is based on a misunderstanding of the case at hand. ARM aren’t trying to force Qualcomm to use ARMs cores. They’re trying to force them to update the licensing royalties to make up for the (as ARM sees it) licensing term violations of Nuvia who had a design license for specific use cases. The part you reference (using ARM designs) is the fallback if Qualcomm lose their design license. The destruction of the chips is standard practice to request in cases of license and IP infringement .
- kranke155 2y agoApple saw the writing on the wall and bailed years ago, built their own chips and denied them a large customer. It’s a really bad sign when a customer decides it can out innovate you by internally copying your entire business and production line.
- sofixa 2y ago> It’s a really bad sign when a customer decides it can out innovate you by internally copying your entire business and production line. Not necessarily, at scale, especially Apple's scale, vertical integration can make a ton of sense - for control, innovation, price, risk hedging.
- manquer 2y agoIt is not apple's decision that is the bad sign. There can be plenty of reasons for that as you mention and wouldn't be of note if their chips were poorer or even similar to intel in performance It is the fact they can build a much better chip in almost any metric so far ahead of Intel is the red flag.
- jayd16 2y agoThey haven't made their own fabs. Not yet, anyway. And historically, wasn't this juts an extension of their fight with Samsung in the mobile space more than a rejection of Intel?
- eric-hu 2y agoRe: fabs, Apple did by way of TSMC. Apple provided TSMC with massive amounts of cash in the 2010’s to fund new fabs. These were loans, but with very generous low interest terms that TSMC couldn’t have gotten elsewhere. I think you’re correct that this was initially because Apple didn’t want to be at the behest of Samsung. But as Apple iterated on their mobile and tablet chips, they had the choice to bring them to their desktop and laptop lines or not to. They took that gamble and here we are today with non Intel Macs.
- tiahura 2y agolast few years. It's pretty much two decades at this point.