SoftBank Nears Deal to Sell Arm to Nvidia [Updated]

[pray2crom]

when we are complaining that apple and nvidia are not playing nice effectively leaving us with no nvidia drivers for Mac OS meanwhile apple is slowing dumping AMD for their custom gpu.......we will come to a point where apple will end its relation to both large gpu chip makers.

 

[CWallace]

The only thing Nvidia could cut Apple off from is future ARM instruction set improvements. Apple is free to 'fork' the instruction set coverage and just move forward with a more proprietary implementation if they want. ( Could do that for another 4-10 years until jump onto something else if they want. )

Would they even need to jump to something else? Apple's implementation of the Armv8-A ISC is unique to their hardware so any reason they could not just continue to develop it independently should NVidia launch a new ISC?

 

[wilhoitm]

Apple hates NVIDIA? I have a bad feeling about NVIDIA buying ARM! Can Apple break Apple Silicon away from the ARM design? What about iPhones and their ARM chips? Is this QUALCOMM all over again?

 

[CmdrPhil]

Well, that sucks. Ten years from now will be the next Apple transition away from third-party instruction sets when Apple wants to be independent of licensing fees and ARM politics. Then we’ll have to go through yet another Apple transition period.

 

[ouimetnick]

This is probably going to make Apple very unhappy.

they already hate nvidia to the core (no pun intended) and I would NOT be surprised if Apple started to create their own instruction set for future Apple Silicon chips, just to give nvidia the finger.

I don’t think Apple cares. They were allegedly given an opportunity to buy Arm and declined. This doesn’t have any impact on the current licensing agreements, so again, I don’t think it bothers Apple at all.

 

[4jasontv]

Would they even need to jump to something else? Apple's implementation of the Armv8-A ISC is unique to their hardware so any reason they could not just continue to develop it independently should NVidia launch a new ISC?

Intel has positioned themselves onto the side of a cliff. Apple has committed to arm and if NVIDIA and Apple can put their differences aside, and if they can get Microsoft on board to refocus on arm support than they could really push a knife into Intel and cut out the mobile market while leaving AMD with the high end CPU market. Meanwhile AMD will continue to chase NVIDIA on GPUs and Apple will chase AMD on CPUs.

Leaving Intel to become IBM.

 

[citysnaps]

Shame Apple didnt buy ARM. Seems like a great opportunity.

I think it would really be a huge distraction for Apple.

 

[jz0309]

not sure what to make of this. it's not going to hurt Apple due to the perpetual license, but what is NVIDIA going to do with Arm? And, being sold for $40B after it was sold 4 years ago for $32B is an increase in valuation of 25%, that's not bad but not really that exciting either ... just scratching my head still

 

[JPack]

For people who haven't figured out why Apple is not interested...

1. Apple already has a perpetual license for at least ARMv8.

2. Apple can lure away a LOT of engineers for $40 billion. That has always been their strategy. Why buy the company?

 

[haydn!]

This is interesting:

“Government must safeguard ARM’s UK HQ, says Labour”

Government must safeguard ARM’s UK HQ, says Labour

Cambridge-based ARM’s current owner, Softbank, is in talks to sell the firm to US chip maker Nvidia.

www.bbc.co.uk

Can really only see the UK ‘government’ doing something if it happens to align with their idiocy game-plan (read: post-Brexit landscape)

I wouldn't pay too much attention to this. It's pretty much a copy and paste message Labour roll out everytime a company that employs people in the UK either goes up for sale or talks about making changes.

 

[Antony Newman]

When Nvidarm release mesh APU's on TSMC 3nm (no reason to stay on Samsung) - the GF/Watt of the next Supercomputer will likely triple.

What will also be interesting will be if Nvidia leverage SVE2.

With all the Fujitsu optimised NOC for the A64FX - perhaps the Mellanox bods will add another dimension (or two) to their current network offerings?

In the Long term - this is good for Apple. NV will accelerate the uprising of ARM. ARM needs optimized software stacks. NV has some of the brightest minds - and can (and will) be able to bring a lot to the table.

As the transistor size shrinks to (TSMC) 4nm - Apple will be able to goose the SOC specifically for iOS / MacOS.
An Apple SOC + a 5nm mini_Afterburner + Apple_GPU will likely have lower latency than anything on the market.

Exciting times.

AJ

 

[Demigod Mac]

Hopefully Apple will have to thaw their feud with Nvidia at this point.

 

[aaronhead14]

Hopefully apple will wake up and us install Nvidia drivers in OS X.

Who on Earth is disliking this comment?? Why would you be against Apple allowing the best graphics cards on the planet back on macOS??

 

[Ael_MR]

Who on Earth is disliking this comment?? Why would you be against Apple allowing the best graphics cards on the planet back on macOS??

Yes they are the best but at what cost per watt? Apple is moving away from intel,amd, and Nvidia because it doesn’t make sense to use their extremely hot and energy inefficient designs.

 

[wilhoitm]

Who on Earth is disliking this comment?? Why would you be against Apple allowing the best graphics cards on the planet back on macOS??

Because NVIDIA cards are not the best, some claim NVIDIA has not had a speed increase since the 1080Ti!

 

[deconstruct60]

Would they even need to jump to something else? Apple's implementation of the Armv8-A ISC is unique to their hardware so any reason they could not just continue to develop it independently should NVidia launch a new ISC?

Because being on an instruction set that just you use is more expensive than being on a "shared R&D" expensive solution. Apple doesn't need a whole different set.

So if RISC-V was a larger, healthy ecosystem 8 years from now with millions-billions in shared R&D being poured into it by most of the major players it could make sense to transition to that. It is the shared R&D costs of ARM that make it attractive to ARM. The same way OpenGL used to work for Apple . The unix terminal system works (the open source base they can lean on) , etc.

If Nvidia drivers ARM into the crapper than Apple can get off. And Apple won't be the only ones. There are lots of others who can gradually get off also. If the paying herd goes somewhere else then so can Apple. None of the other options are really have the herd moving that way, but that can change over time. Once big players got onto the Linux bandwagon the "enterprise" Unix options died off substantially.

Apple have jumped offf of 68K , PPC, and x86-64. One more in 10 years won't hurt if there are financial upsides to it. Apple doesn't slavishly cling to backward compatibility. that makes the instruction set long term disposable as an option.

Apple has never run off and used an instruction set that nobody else was using. Small tweaks in some extremely narrow corner cases isn't all that unique of an instruction set. Shared eductional/training exposure on broadly used instruction sets , tool-chain development ( optimizations , tuned libraries , etc). If all that dramatically dwindles over a decade or so for ARM it would be time to consider going with the herd.

Apple doesn't have to switch any time soon or even several years. Nvidia doesn't "have to" drive ARM into the ground. The current inertia on ARM is high enough for many players that Nvidia could milk as a cash cow for quite a long time. For which Apple could just kick the can.

 

[laz232]

Apple hates NVIDIA? I have a bad feeling about NVIDIA buying ARM! Can Apple break Apple Silicon away from the ARM design? What about iPhones and their ARM chips? Is this QUALCOMM all over again?

This has nothing to do with any of that. Nvidia will continue to sell ARM licenses to all: great revenue stream.

They will integrate ARM into their AI play (see RTX 30 series) - for big data / AI / automotive.

This bypasses Intel (and their attempt at the automotive / AI market with Altera purchase).

It makes Nvidia a rivial to AMD / ATI in the big data field.

Apple doesn't have to worry about being called out as a monopoly (if they had bought ARM) - nor for being on both sides of the table for when Samsung / Qualcomm etc want an ARM license.

Thus Nvidia purchase of ARM (and Apple not purchasing ARM ) make great sense for both companies respectively

 

[vmistery]

I wouldn't pay too much attention to this. It's pretty much a copy and paste message Labour roll out everytime a company that employs people in the UK either goes up for sale or talks about making changes.

And much like with Cadbury Labour would be right. No doubt it would be bad news for high tech industry in the U.K. as US companies are notoriously bad for buying them closing down or shrinking U.K. operations after a purchase.

 

[The Cappy]

No it wouldn't - it would actually be an albatros around Apple's neck.

Edit: it would look too much like a monopoly (see other court cases) - even if licenses are under "fair" non-discrimanatory terms.
Whereas Apple is such big licensee - ARM owners are forced to work with them - so not owning ARM is actually in Apple's strategic favour.

Agreed. Apple would immediately become embroiled in a thousand lawsuits demanding Apple license its own ARM chip. And those lawsuits would win.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

Imagine if NVIDIA gets petty and says: No macOS NVIDIA drivers, no license... lol.

That's called a tie-in agreement and it's illegal.

 

[hot-gril]

Because NVIDIA cards are not the best, some claim NVIDIA has not had a speed increase since the 1080Ti!

The benchmarks show a sizable increase, around 22%.

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti vs GeForce GTX 1080 Ti [videocardbenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

Just one example, but pick your favorite. The 2080ti also has a lot more memory bandwidth, which is a strong (but still fallible) indicator of ML performance.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

Great move for Nvidia to help them compete against AMD! Probably not worth $40B to Apple versus the perpetual license agreements they already have. Apple likely built a ton of IP on top of the generic ARM license that Nvidia could never legally touch.

 

[laptech]

And much like with Cadbury Labour would be right. No doubt it would be bad news for high tech industry in the U.K. as US companies are notoriously bad for buying them closing down or shrinking U.K. operations after a purchase.

Exactly right. The UK government requested certain guarantees that if they allow the sale to go ahead, all the factories would be protected from closing down. The assurances were given, the government allowed the sale to go ahead. Then within 4 months one of the main factories was closed.

The UK government got caught out before, at least someone is keeping an eye on things, even if it is Labour.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Come on folks. Use your brains. This is a poor purchase for Nvidia. Perpetual licensing already done. Server market they are better off licensing the ARM perpetual license and designing their own SoC solutions with ARM, whether Auto, HPC, Aerospace, etc.

Nvidia is banking on future licensing restructures and IoT for a smart world with ARM as the perpetual platform. They'll tier the heck out of the licensing schemes and charge required Service Contracts ala Oracle.

It will fail.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Hopefully Apple will have to thaw their feud with Nvidia at this point.

Why? They won't use anything from Nvidia. Nvidia has no leverage. Apple is far better off continuing with AMD.