Apple to Invest in British Chip Designer Arm on Initial Public Offering

[MacRumors]

Apple plans to invest in British chip design company Arm when owner Softbank Group floats its shares in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq in September, reports Nikkei Asia.

The chip designer's market capitalization by that time is expected to be more than $60 billion, which would make it the world's biggest initial public offering so far this year.

SoftBank will officially apply to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the listing later this month. Then it must obtain approval from Nasdaq. Leading global chipmakers, including Apple, Samsung Electronics, Nvidia and Intel, will invest in Arm as soon as the company is listed on the market.

Arm plans to welcome the big chipmakers as medium- to long-term shareholders, selling them stakes of a few percent each. By holding Arm's shares, chipmakers will hope to have sway over Arm's management.

Japan-based SoftBank has been preparing for an IPO since its plan to sell Arm to Nvidia became subject to regulatory scrutiny. California-based Nvidia in January 2022 abandoned the purchase when it became clear that the deal would be blocked by the FTC.

Since its founding in 1990, Arm has developed integrated circuit design data, considered the "blueprint" for semiconductors. Arm licenses its chip designs to over 500 companies, including Apple, and its architecture is used in 95 percent of the world's smartphones.

Arm's hardware underpins all of Apple's custom silicon processors such as the A15 in the iPhone 14 and the M2 in the MacBook Pro, since Apple licenses the Arm instruction set.

Article Link: Apple to Invest in British Chip Designer Arm on Initial Public Offering

 

[mannyvel]

ARM and Apple go back a long way. Selling ARM stock kept Apple alive during the lean years, and now Apple is completely ARM-based. Amazing.

 

[omglolbbq]

In today’s least surprising news…

 

[HawkTheHusky1902]

In today’s least surprising news…

We find top secret info that shows that Apple is invested in Arm! Insane!

 

[Leon Ze Professional]

"Japan-based SoftBank has been preparing for an IPO since its plan to sell Arm to Nvidia became subject to regulatory scrutiny. California-based Nvidia in January 2022 abandoned the purchase when it became clear that the deal would be blocked by the FTC."

Of course Apple would be keen to invest in ARM to protect it by having a stake in it. The abandoned Nvidia purchase probably scared Apple enough to act.

 

[a m u n]

For those who don’t know:

The company was founded in November 1990 as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. and structured as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple, and VLSI Technology.

 

[HawkTheHusky1902]

"Japan-based SoftBank has been preparing for an IPO since its plan to sell Arm to Nvidia became subject to regulatory scrutiny. California-based Nvidia in January 2022 abandoned the purchase when it became clear that the deal would be blocked by the FTC."

Of course Apple would be keen to invest in ARM to protect it by having a stake in it. The abandoned Nvidia purchase probably scared Apple enough to act.

3080s still blow the M2 Max GPU performance out of the water...

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

I think Apple would get the same regulatory problems as Nvidia if they tried getting all the shares...

...but going in with a solid minority, I'd like to see about 20-30%, or even 35% for negative control, just to protect ARM from another raid...

 

[Kazgarth]

Should invest in RISC-V Instead

 

[Shirasaki]

3080s still blow the M2 Max GPU performance out of the water...

But it is getting harder and harder to improve without increasing the power budget

 

[Icelus]

A Brief History of ARM

* https://community.arm.com/arm-commu...sors-blog/posts/a-brief-history-of-arm-part-1
* https://community.arm.com/arm-commu...sors-blog/posts/a-brief-history-of-arm-part-2

 

[krspkbl]

Of course they will. ARM powers iPhones and Macs so it'd be stupid of them to not invest in it. This is hardly news.

 

[neilw]

But it is getting harder and harder to improve without increasing the power budget

I expect some significant GPU improvements with the M3, but I do not expect it to compete with top discrete chips. I do not expect integrated M-series chips to *ever* compete against the best discrete chips in raw performance. This is why it is disappointing that Apple Silicon (even in the Mac Pro) doesn't support discrete GPUs.

Well, "disappointing" in the general sense. I don't do GPU-intensive stuff so Apple Silicon is just great for my use, and for a whole lot of other people as well.

None of which has anything to do with Apple investing in ARM, which is obviously a good thing.

 

[0339327]

Apple would be wise to buy as much of Arm as the government will allow.

Apple should be able to acquire a majority as unlike Nvidia, Apple does not sell chipset outside of its own products and would therefore not reduce the amount of players in the market. It would be interesting to see Apple complete head to head with Intel.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Will I be able to afford this stock when it goes public? Seems like a safe bet for the long term?

 

[k1121j]

Ohh Fancy!!! Hey Apple buy a majority stake lol

 

[Shirasaki]

I expect some significant GPU improvements with the M3, but I do not expect it to compete with top discrete chips. I do not expect integrated M-series chips to *ever* compete against the best discrete chips in raw performance. This is why it is disappointing that Apple Silicon (even in the Mac Pro) doesn't support discrete GPUs.

Well, "disappointing" in the general sense. I don't do GPU-intensive stuff so Apple Silicon is just great for my use, and for a whole lot of other people as well.

None of which has anything to do with Apple investing in ARM, which is obviously a good thing.

I am talking about NVIDIA and their 5080 and 6080, not Apple M3. Without developer support similar to the scale of Windows in gaming (aka, first or at least second platform of choice), even M9 won’t make much fuss in an actual sense.

 

[4a6d65]

Apple would be wise to buy as much of Arm as the government will allow.

Apple should be able to acquire a majority as unlike Nvidia, Apple does not sell chipset outside of its own products and would therefore not reduce the amount of players in the market. It would be interesting to see Apple complete head to head with Intel.

But don't forget that competition regulators also look at the end results too. Apple does directly compete with those that use Arm processors, such as Microsoft, Google and Samsung. There is just as much worry that if Apple had a majority control it could keep specific processors for itself or outright not sell to competitors or drive up the prices.

Obviously I don't think it will be quite as black and white as this and I also think that investment will come from other companies too, I can definitely see one of the other big major tech companies ranging from Meta to Qualcomm wanting to buy into Arm.

 

[jonnysods]

Pump and dump!

 

[RedTheReader]

I wonder if there will ever be a standard that’s open for anyone’s use without licensing fees. I keep seeing the “RISC V” name being thrown around, but I have no idea what it means or entails.

3080s still blow the M2 Max GPU performance out of the water...

Don’t worry, I’m sure the M3 Max will be able to match the 3080 mobile… from 2021… in 2024.

 

[HawkTheHusky1902]

But it is getting harder and harder to improve without increasing the power budget

True

 

[HawkTheHusky1902]

I wonder if there will ever be a standard that’s open for anyone’s use without licensing fees. I keep seeing the “RISC V” name being thrown around, but I have no idea what it means or entails.


Don’t worry, I’m sure the M3 Max will be able to match the 3080 mobile… from 2021… in 2024.

I'm sure, but by that time the 2024 3080s will also blow them out of the water lol....and so on...

 

[CapitalIdea]

Should invest in RISC-V Instead

I would but my investments are tied up in PowerPC and BeOS.

 

[antibolo]

The whole point of the ARM spec being its own company is so it remains a neutral party. Neither Apple nor nVidia should be owning any part of it at all.

 

[DailySlow]

Apple plans to invest in British chip design company Arm when owner Softbank Group floats its shares in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq in September, reports Nikkei Asia.

The chip designer's market capitalization by that time is expected to be more than $60 billion, which would make it the world's biggest initial public offering so far this year.
Arm plans to welcome the big chipmakers as medium- to long-term shareholders, selling them stakes of a few percent each. By holding Arm's shares, chipmakers will hope to have sway over Arm's management.

Japan-based SoftBank has been preparing for an IPO since its plan to sell Arm to Nvidia became subject to regulatory scrutiny. California-based Nvidia in January 2022 abandoned the purchase when it became clear that the deal would be blocked by the FTC.

Since its founding in 1990, Arm has developed integrated circuit design data, considered the "blueprint" for semiconductors. Arm licenses its chip designs to over 500 companies, including Apple, and its architecture is used in 95 percent of the world's smartphones.

Arm's hardware underpins all of Apple's custom silicon processors such as the A15 in the iPhone 14 and the M2 in the MacBook Pro, since Apple licenses the Arm instruction set.

Article Link: Apple to Invest in British Chip Designer Arm on Initial Public Offering

When RISC came out, the tech was, as I recall, foreseen to be most likely applied to relatively mundane computational needs; number crunching, controllers. CISC would handle the big sexy stuff. Broadband and cloud have shifted that mission all to Hell.