ARM Holdings isn't doing well?

[CASMAS]

Arm-NVIDIA Deal: Everything You Need to Know - EETimes

EETimes discusses what would happen to the technology industry if the Arm-NVIDIA deal goes through. Visit to learn more about the merger.

www.eetimes.com

Perhaps this is why Apple needs to develop RISC-V based chip? It seems Apple Silicon isn't really ARM based as Apple developed everything except the architecture. We dont know if Apple is seriously considering RISC-V but the current situation looks interesting as ARM is trying to be acquired by Nvidia in order to solve many issues from their own.

 

[cmaier]

Arm-NVIDIA Deal: Everything You Need to Know - EETimes

EETimes discusses what would happen to the technology industry if the Arm-NVIDIA deal goes through. Visit to learn more about the merger.

www.eetimes.com

Perhaps this is why Apple needs to develop RISC-V based chip? It seems Apple Silicon isn't really ARM based as Apple developed everything except the architecture. We dont know if Apple is seriously considering RISC-V but the current situation looks interesting as ARM is trying to be acquired by Nvidia in order to solve many issues from their own.

What would RISC-V solve? Apple already has everything it needs from Arm, so even if Arm went out of business tomorrow it wouldn’t matter to them.

 

[CASMAS]

What would RISC-V solve? Apple already has everything it needs from Arm, so even if Arm went out of business tomorrow it wouldn’t matter to them.

I dont get it. Then who makes architecture like ARM9?

 

[Boil]

Smoke & mirrors...

SoftBank bought Arm, SoftBank made some poor business decisions with some of their other holdings, SoftBank is now trying to sell Arm (the only thing they have worth much of anything) for the cash flow...?

 

[robco74]

Of course Arm and Nvidia are going to present the deal in the best possible light - they want it to go through. They aren't going to bring up the negatives, and will exaggerate the "threat" posed by RISC-V.

I understand that SoftBank doesn't want to lose money on the deal, but they vastly overpaid for Arm. Nvidia is trying to do the same. There will be immense pressure to recover their investment as quickly as possible. That's the part that should be worrying to regulators.

 

[cmaier]

I dont get it. Then who makes architecture like ARM9?

Arm. But so what? It’s mature. (Arm9 added very little, for example). And anything else Apple want, they can add themselves. After all, in the end of the pool in which Apple plays, everyone does their own ISA extensions anyway (Intel, AMD, etc.). And Apple doesn‘t have to worry about whether compilers, dev tools, linkers, and operating systems would support their own Arm extensions because, after all, Apple essentially does all that stuff themselves too.

 

[Gerdi]

Arm. But so what? It’s mature. (Arm9 added very little, for example). And anything else Apple want, they can add themselves. After all, in the end of the pool in which Apple plays, everyone does their own ISA extensions anyway (Intel, AMD, etc.). And Apple doesn‘t have to worry about whether compilers, dev tools, linkers, and operating systems would support their own Arm extensions because, after all, Apple essentially does all that stuff themselves too.

It is not that simple. Take for example JDK. It is vailable for M1 Macs, because M1 is strictly ARMv8 and it was ported based on the Linux and Windows AArch64 port. Similar argument for .Net or Mono.
The RISC-V folks have been working for 5 years by now in order to get it supported upstream in JDK. And if you look into Mono, the RISC-V specific implementation is just stubbed.
So yes, there is a huge advantage of being in the ARM ecosystem.

 

[cmaier]

It is not that simple. Take for example JDK. It is vailable for M1 Macs, because M1 is strictly ARMv8 and it was ported based on the Linux and Windows AArch64 port. Similar argument for .Net or Mono.
The RISC-V folks have been working for 5 years by now in order to get it supported upstream in JDK. And if you look into Mono, the RISC-V specific implementation is just stubbed.
So yes, there is a huge advantage of being in the ARM ecosystem.

None of the things you just mentioned are advantages to *apple.*

But you are also missing the point. He was proposing RISC-V. I am saying “no. Stay with arm.“ In his scenario, Arm is not a viable company anymore, so any advancements to the Arm ISA are no longer coming from Arm. It is in THAT world where I am proposing Apple would simply extend Arm on its own.

 

[Gerdi]

None of the things you just mentioned are advantages to *apple.*

But you are also missing the point. He was proposing RISC-V. I am saying “no. Stay with arm.“ In his scenario, Arm is not a viable company anymore, so any advancements to the Arm ISA are no longer coming from Arm. It is in THAT world where I am proposing Apple would simply extend Arm on its own.

If they increase the customer base and the availability of major popular SW frameworks certainly does, how is this not an advantage for Apple?
In any case my issue with your statement is the claim, that Apple could randomly deviate from the architecture baseline (Aarch64) without significant disadvantages. With deviating i mean, not just adding features, which would keep downwards compatibility intact.
Of course with RISC-V the impact would be much more drastic.

ps: On a sidenote, the document states that Microsoft is an architectural license owner of ARM. I did not know this before.

 

[cmaier]

If they increase the customer base and the availability of major popular SW frameworks certainly do, how is this not an advantage for Apple?
In any case my issue with your statement is the claim, that Apple could randomly deviate from the architecture baseline (Aarch64) without significant disadvantages. With deviating i mean, not just adding features, which would keep downwards compatibility intact.
Of course with RISC-V the impact would be much more drastic.

Where did I claim they could randomly deviate? I talked about adding features. I literally said “anything else apple want[sic] they can ADD themselves.” I then talked about “Arm extensions.” (Which are by definition additions). Not sure why you feel the need to invent what I said when anyone can just read the truth.

And I talked about doing so only in a scenario where Arm wasn’t around anymore to create new extensions. In that situation, where would you like extensions to come from?

 

[calstanford]

Apple is a full license holder for ARM. If anything they'd just diverge their processors and have Mx processors run off of ARM++++++Apple extensions forever (rendering incompatible with other ARM). Going to a different instruction set architecture (RISC-V) helps Apple exactly zero.

 

[Gerdi]

Where did I claim they could randomly deviate? I talked about adding features. I literally said “anything else apple want[sic] they can ADD themselves.” I then talked about “Arm extensions.” (Which are by definition additions). Not sure why you feel the need to invent what I said when anyone can just read the truth.

And I talked about doing so only in a scenario where Arm wasn’t around anymore to create new extensions. In that situation, where would you like extensions to come from?

You are right, it was my sloppy reading. It was not my intention of putting words in your mouth.

 

[jdb8167]

It is not that simple. Take for example JDK. It is vailable for M1 Macs, because M1 is strictly ARMv8 and it was ported based on the Linux and Windows AArch64 port. Similar argument for .Net or Mono.
The RISC-V folks have been working for 5 years by now in order to get it supported upstream in JDK. And if you look into Mono, the RISC-V specific implementation is just stubbed.
So yes, there is a huge advantage of being in the ARM ecosystem.

The JDK is specific to Apple silicon and macOS. While it was started as a port of the general AArch64 design, it is specific to macOS. If Apple made architecture changes to their AArch64 design, then the macOS JDK would have to change to whatever extent was needed to support the new architecture. It was certainly helpful to have Linux AArch64 JDK to start with but Java is designed to support many different architectures. If Apple switched to RISC-V, they would get a macOS port that started with the current RISC-V JDK. There really isn't a problem here.

 

[metapunk2077fail]

Arm-NVIDIA Deal: Everything You Need to Know - EETimes

EETimes discusses what would happen to the technology industry if the Arm-NVIDIA deal goes through. Visit to learn more about the merger.

www.eetimes.com

Perhaps this is why Apple needs to develop RISC-V based chip? It seems Apple Silicon isn't really ARM based as Apple developed everything except the architecture. We dont know if Apple is seriously considering RISC-V but the current situation looks interesting as ARM is trying to be acquired by Nvidia in order to solve many issues from their own.

RISC-V, in its current iteration, is a very weak chip. It would have to run at 12 Ghz to match the M1 3.1 Ghz in per core performance.

The next time Apple changes to a new architecture in maybe 10-15 years it will be some kind of FPGA that will redesign itself on the fly. Sort of what Afterburner was intended to do. You launch FCP and the chip redesigns itself for that. You launch Blender and the chip optimises for that. Whatever the foreground app is will make the chip adapt like a T-1000 ??

 

[Xiao_Xi]

RISC-V, in its current iteration, is a very weak chip. It would have to run at 12 Ghz to match the M1 3.1 Ghz in per core performance.

Which RISC-V based SOC are you comparing to? Has any company made a RISC-V based SOC better than the Raspberry Pi SOC?

 

[Boil]

RISC-V, in its current iteration, is a very weak chip. It would have to run at 12 Ghz to match the M1 3.1 Ghz in per core performance.

Which RISC-V based SOC are you comparing to? Has any company made a RISC-V based SOC better than the Raspberry Pi SOC?

So what I am hearing is that the Raspberry Pi can be cranked to 12GHz...!?!

Friggin' technologies...! ;^p

 

[Boil]

The next time Apple changes to a new architecture in maybe 10-15 years it will be some kind of FPGA that will redesign itself on the fly. Sort of what Afterburner was intended to do. You launch FCP and the chip redesigns itself for that. You launch Blender and the chip optimises for that. Whatever the foreground app is will make the chip adapt like a T-1000 ??

Obviously, a Pro variant would have multiples of this WonderFPGA, for more efficient multi-tasking...?!?

 

[metapunk2077fail]

Obviously, a Pro variant would have multiples of this WonderFPGA, for more efficient multi-tasking...?!?

One of the interesting things that is happening in the FPGA and emulation world is the use of downloadable cores that are optimised for emulating specific platforms like 68000 Motorola, MAME, Sega, etc. That could be used for optimising performance for individual apps also.

 

[CASMAS]

Arm. But so what? It’s mature. (Arm9 added very little, for example). And anything else Apple want, they can add themselves. After all, in the end of the pool in which Apple plays, everyone does their own ISA extensions anyway (Intel, AMD, etc.). And Apple doesn‘t have to worry about whether compilers, dev tools, linkers, and operating systems would support their own Arm extensions because, after all, Apple essentially does all that stuff themselves too.

And who makes architecture? Even Apple has to license the architecture itself. The architecture is not free after all.

 

[cmaier]

And who makes architecture? Even Apple has to license the architecture itself. The architecture is not free after all.

I’m not sure what your point is. Yes, Apple has a license to the architecture. Since Apple paid for the creation of Arm, I assume it’s actually a perpetual license and they aren’t paying anything anymore, but who knows.

But if Arm goes away, then Apple can easily extend the architecture itself. After all, they certainly already work with Arm to get features that they want added to the ISA. And good chip designers can create their own architecture - they don’t need Arm to do it. At AMD, we created AMD64 (now x86-64) - I actually helped design part of the ISA. I didn‘t have to go to some “architecture experts” at some neutral company to do it. Intel also creates its own architectures and architectural extensions.

So, once again, assume Arm goes away. Goes out of business. Stays in Business but stops providing new architectures and extensions. Gets bought by nVidia who keeps all the good extensions for itself. Whatever. In those scenarios, Apple would be MUCH better off extending Arm as it sees fit (and probably making its extensions available by license to others to use if they want), instead of switching to RISC-V (which is currently a horrible mess, due to its immaturity, a few weird technical decisions, and the fact that you never know what extensions will exist in what RISC-V chips).

 

[CASMAS]

I’m not sure what your point is. Yes, Apple has a license to the architecture. Since Apple paid for the creation of Arm, I assume it’s actually a perpetual license and they aren’t paying anything anymore, but who knows.

But if Arm goes away, then Apple can easily extend the architecture itself. After all, they certainly already work with Arm to get features that they want added to the ISA. And good chip designers can create their own architecture - they don’t need Arm to do it. At AMD, we created AMD64 (now x86-64) - I actually helped design part of the ISA. I didn‘t have to go to some “architecture experts” at some neutral company to do it. Intel also creates its own architectures and architectural extensions.

So, once again, assume Arm goes away. Goes out of business. Stays in Business but stops providing new architectures and extensions. Gets bought by nVidia who keeps all the good extensions for itself. Whatever. In those scenarios, Apple would be MUCH better off extending Arm as it sees fit (and probably making its extensions available by license to others to use if they want), instead of switching to RISC-V (which is currently a horrible mess, due to its immaturity, a few weird technical decisions, and the fact that you never know what extensions will exist in what RISC-V chips).

Still not convincing. Extending the architecture is not really helpful which means they no longer be able to access the latest architecture unless Apple can make their own architecture. It's like you are stuck at ARM8.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Extending the architecture is not really helpful which means they no longer be able to access the latest architecture unless Apple can make their own architecture. It's like you are stuck at ARM8.

Without ARM, Apple could extend ARM ISA at will. Apple doesn't need to agree with any other company to create new extensions that only works in its hardware. Apple would only need to include the new instructions in the LLVM compiler.

 

[cmaier]

Still not convincing. Extending the architecture is not really helpful which means they no longer be able to access the latest architecture unless Apple can make their own architecture. It's like you are stuck at ARM8.

What? Arm9 is just an extension of Arm8. I really have no idea what you are trying to say. In fact, Apple has already made a couple of extensions beyond what Arm provides.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Since Apple paid for the creation of Arm, I assume it’s actually a perpetual license and they aren’t paying anything anymore,

Is this true?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1484409119847038979

In fact, Apple has already made a couple of extensions beyond what Arm provides.

The guy in charge of the Linux port lists some examples.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1484411880664100867

 

[cmaier]

Is this true?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1484409119847038979

The guy in charge of the Linux port lists some examples.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1484411880664100867

As far as I know, that’s all true. My best bet is that Apple can essentially do whatever it wants. It might not be allowed to call its products “Arm” if it doesn’t get ”concessions” when it makes certain types of modifications. But notice that Apple really doesn’t mention Arm in any of its marketing. It’s just “Apple Silicon.”

All of which goes to show you that if Arm went away, Apple would be perfectly capable of going it alone and moving its chip architectures forward, but for now, for the sake of keeping the benefit of industry-wide Arm tooling and resources, they play nice.