that wouldn't work, and the reason is technical. I can't explain in simple words, too much typing.If I were Intel, man would I buy that company... Saves them from becoming (maybe, who knows) irrelevant.
that wouldn't work, and the reason is technical. I can't explain in simple words, too much typing.If I were Intel, man would I buy that company... Saves them from becoming (maybe, who knows) irrelevant.
Softbank paid too much for ARM, way more than a Fabless design only Semiconductor Firm deserves, Softbank paid 32 Billion USD so now they must be hunting for someone ready to pay more than 32 Billion. Apple would not do it because they only use they only use the ARM ISA which has a perpetual license, so Apple doesn't have to renew it. Also Apple designed all the cores from scratch so they dont depend on yearly Cortex design by ARM. Qualcomm on the other hand actually does not design its cores so it needs to license those Cortex designs every yr. Even if they do buy ARM it won't affect Apple a bit. So its quite pointless for Apple to buy the ARM, Even if tomorrow ARM Decides to create a new ISA or more advanced ISA and Apple doesn't need it doesn't even need to license new one.I wonder if SoftBank timed this "for sale" talk to coincide with Apple's moving MacOS to ARM announcement in the hope of getting them to seriously consider buying them out?
I can think of several companies I'd rather not see taking control of ARM who'd love to use ownership to make life difficult for Apple. Yes, yes, "regulatory oversight and requirements that would accompany such a deal" should make it safe but then again...
Imagine Qualcomm owning ARM? That couldn't be good for anyone.
Apples license is only for the ISA which is a perpetual license. So they dont buy it every yr. They only bought it once, Also apple designed all their Cores from scratch so they actually dont need the cortex designs by ARM, there is a reason why Apples designs are 2-3 yrs ahead of ARM itself and thus rest of the Industry.What stops another company from buying ARM and then quadrupling (or more) the licensing fees? What alternatives would Apple have at that point?
Nvidia is actually a big player in the PC markets, and has a control to a extent over essentially every PC manufacturer except Apple, because they have much stronger GPUs compared to AMD.
this little thing called Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory Licensing also known as FRAND.
the same reason why if Apple bought ARM they would have to license it and could keep it to itself. ARM has become an industry standard there for is subject to FRAND.
my concern is, what stops a company from buying and not improving ARM or dragging the feet to do so.
lol - if you think that losing Apple with its measly 5% market share will make Intel irrelevant, think again.
I hope Intel buys ARM and then charges Apple double of what they wanted for the Intel platform before.
In all honesty: I find it extremely short-sighted of Apple to pass on this opportunity to completely control the processor market for mobile devices and their own hardware.
don‘t worry, Apple‘s „what goes around, comes around“ strategy will ensure that by 2028, they‘ll ditch ARM and go back to PPC. And three years later they‘ll switch back to Intel. You gotta keep your devs nimble and your customers‘ purses open, don‘t you?
Apple is no longer dependent on the ARM architecture since the A9 chip. In addition Apple can make their own Instruction Set if needed because Apple's ecosystem is unique. There are no obstacles anymore.
That might actually be good, NVIDIA is a D*** head company and it would rent seek on all Android devices once it buys ARM. Not a bad thing for APPLE.Nvidia is eyeing ARM and I hope they acquire them. Imagine Apple and Nvidia both pushing powerful ARM processors for mobile, PC, workstations, datacenter, etc.
With only Apple pushing ARM for MacOS isn’t enough. We need a giant like Nvidia to do that as well on the Windows side so the entire industry can migrate to ARM ASAP.
Designing a new ISA doesn't get you anything there isn't any technical advantage to designing a new ISA when the current is already the most optimised it already is RISC.Moving to its own ISA would probably take years, and if Apple wanted to do that, this WWDC would've been a good moment to announce it. Instead, they're now having all Mac developers target the ARM ISA.
Haha So you are saying a consortium will spend 40+ Billion dollars and make it open source and what will they tell their Investors?A consortium of Apple, Qualcomm and others should buy it and open source it like risc-v. That way nobody could charge license fees, and it would make it more appropriate for educational institutions as well.
If ARM decides to overcharge, Apple could just develop their own architecture, or even go with RISC-V. Their entire ecosystem is closed and not dependent on external architectures.
You can use any old other ISA, like MIPS or RISC-V or whatever.
RISC-V is anything but old.
Who's to say Apple is not already working on their own architecture?![]()
Now that's funny.Nvidia is eyeing ARM and I hope they acquire them. Imagine Apple and Nvidia both pushing powerful ARM processors for mobile, PC, workstations, datacenter, etc.
With only Apple pushing ARM for MacOS isn’t enough. We need a giant like Nvidia to do that as well on the Windows side so the entire industry can migrate to ARM ASAP.
In the PC/server/gaming world Nvidia surely isn't a gnat.A “giant” like Nvidia? Nvidia is a gnat flying around Apple’s behind. They are nothing compared to Apple. “Apple pushing ARM... isn’t enough” What planet are you from?
Nvidia is eyeing ARM and I hope they acquire them. Imagine Apple and Nvidia both pushing powerful ARM processors for mobile, PC, workstations, datacenter, etc.
With only Apple pushing ARM for MacOS isn’t enough. We need a giant like Nvidia to do that as well on the Windows side so the entire industry can migrate to ARM ASAP.
Cost. Softbank isn't selling the #1 mobile processor for pennies. Also to screw Apple you need to screw all the other ARM customers. Where Qualcomm and Nokia failed in their licensing of their radio patents is that they wanted to make Apple pay more just because they are successful. They join and contribute to a consortium, agree to a price schedule. They don't get to pick and choose who gets charged more. Samsung is probably the biggest seller of BluRay players on the planet. Apple nor MS ever decide to charge Samsung more for their patents that are part of the BluRay consortium.
Total Revenue of ARM is around $1.5 Billion, Soft bank bought it for 21 Times that. At this rate it will take 21 yrs for them to recover the investment alone. Who knows if we would still be using Von Neumann architecture after 20 yrs or not. I highly doubt that because we are almost running out of Nanometers, TSMC has already said the next tech they will be rolling out soon would be 3nm , which is like 15 Atoms of silicon , may be 2 or more cycles and we dont really know what to do next.No way - the ARM deal was a steal!
I agree. I don’t think Apple will spend billions on anything like that.When SoftBank bought ARM in 2016, it was for $30 billion and most analysts thought it was overpriced.
Article is not free to readIt's definitely worth reading the whole article before commenting. The last 2 paragraphs address your concern.
Remember the Nvidia graphics chip bug that haunted many MacBook Pros years ago. I'm sure there are other more recent irritants but that one was a big reliability and thus a image problem for Apple.Lol, Apple inexplicably hates Nvidia. So if Nvidia buys Arm, hopefully Nvidia will tell Apple they can only use Arm architecture if Apple brings Nvidia GPUs back to the Mac. That would be the dream. Haha.
WeWork guy a conman plain and simple. He sold real estate as technology, and stole money directly from the investors into his personal account.Soft Bank is turning into an unmitigated disaster starting with the scam that is/was WeWork. I did not realize they massively overpaid for ARM as well. The guy who founded WeWork is the ultimate shyster, just read any article about him and his bizarre business practices. The whole concept is dead in the water now that many people who went to offices now work at home. They are holding a ton of real estate they overpaid for that has been tremendously reduced in value.
It's not clear what your objections are. Why do you think that? Perpetual doesn't mean free, if that's your concern. It just means the terms are set in stone, subject to certain conditions. It would mean the license fee schedule would be set in perpetuity. There's no way Apple would commit to any license if the licensor could arbitrarily change the terms at some point in the future. Also, why are you talking about third party companies in general? This is a technology license, which is a very specific thing; it's not in any way like a component supply contract. It's a right to use intelligence property only. And yes, sometimes those are perpetual; or of such long term (like 99 years) that they are effectively perpetual.