SoftBank Nears Deal to Sell Arm to Nvidia [Updated]

[hot-gril]

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

I don't know how illegal it is. Maybe this is apples and oranges, but Microsoft pulled Halo off the Mac when they bought Bungie. And Apple has bought several appmakers out and removed the Android versions.

Sounds like Apple already has the license they need from ARM anyway.

 

[limo79]

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

... for the patents.

 

[Spock]

I don't know how illegal it is. Maybe this is apples and oranges, but Microsoft pulled Halo off the Mac when they bought Bungie. And Apple has bought several appmakers out and removed the Android versions.

That’s not the same thing.

 

[Spock]

I can’t see this being a problem for Apple at all. I highly doubt that NVidia will tell Apple they don’t want there money.

 

[iBluetooth]

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

Apple founded ARM with Acorn Computers and VLSI in 1990. Apple had 45% share, but sold it during it's financial problems. Thus, Apple has a special license of using ARM ISA in their Apple Silicon Chips. The objective was to produce CPU's for the Newton (a iPad predecessor that failed due to the famous stylus according to Jobs). Apple demanded that Acorn Computers would set up special company for the chips, as they might later become competitors.

 

[deconstruct60]

.....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.

Is NV coming the accelerate ARM (and its licenses ) or is NV out to accelerate NV's products ? The latter isn't necessarily going to accelerate ARM.

Nvidia buying ARM so that all of ARM's current customers do better is a vastly different objective of buying ARM so Nvidia can over time suck up most of the profitable business that ARM's current customers do.

ARM doesn't necessarily need a large amount of more brightness minds. What ARM needs most is a steady investment flow and a non short term extraction of profits. Selling more IP to a wider base of SoC implementer at products that have a higher profit margin for the implementers ( not sucking most of that money back directly back into ARM's owner's pockets. )

ARM makes money but it isn't even and it needs broader, diverse sources. What it doesn't need is some hand waving plan of how there is a "big pot of gold" of magic synergy profits or some other huge pay off that would justify some wildly large multple being put on the companies purchase price .... ( more likely to bring more MBA 'brains" than tech brains to the 'problem'. )

If this deal sucks up too much of Nvidia cash then there are sufficient long term investment issues that could lead to problems. If this deals has way too high percentage of "monopoly money" stock component to it then that has other hiccup issues downstream. Again buying with 'bubble' money often leads to problems later. ( Softbank choked on ARM that's why it is being sold now. )




Nvidia is probably going to talk some 'story' about how they aren't going to damage consumer choice to get back the antitrust regulators in EU/China/US/UK , but how much of that is 'smoke' and how much they are actually going to do long term is questionable at this point in time.

 

[JPack]

... for the patents.

Cheaper to license. Just look at the case with Imagination Technologies.

Apple's strategy of brain-draining means Apple engineers will eventually develop patents that others need, resulting in a cross-licensing deal.

 

[poorcody]

I think "Apple Silicon" is already becoming Apple's proprietary design, moving farther and farther away from ARM's original design. If Nvidia owns ARM, I expect that to accelerate given Apple's apparent animosity towards Nvidia.

In other words, Apple's processors will probably become less and less ARM and more and more Apple. They really will have little reason to remain compatible with ARM. Especially if they maintain what is by most accounts a top-notch silicon team, and can leverage their market-power to be a preferential customer to the fabs.

 

[deconstruct60]

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

....

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

Actually not quite. Few are going to want Apple's design to be licensed. What the suits will be about is that Apple could not shutdown ARMs full array of work it does for other customers. In other words Apple would have to go into the design lots of designs for lots of different systems business. Do almost everything for almost everybody. Those suits wouldn't necessarily win. Can't sue to make someone be in a market if they don't want to. Apple stopped selling printers , Xserve , mid-range box-with slots , etc. Nobody was going to sue to make them bring that back and win.


If Apple had to committ to being a 3rd party component vendor that would be the albatross because Apple doesn't really do well at walking and chewing gum at the same time. They have an organization that spends a high amount of effort not trying to make everything for everybody. ( saying "no" to lots of products). Apple Silicon is built specifically for a very small handful of products and more so dribbled out as "hand me down" SoCs to other parts of the product category. Apple doesn't even built specific chips for all of their own products. No way they are going to build them for other people's stuff. Apple does complicated things but only on a relatively very narrow set of products.


When Apple buys stuff in the component category they tend to take that component off the general market. Bought a SSD controller company ... no more external customers. bought Touch ID sensor company ... no more external customers. Apple doesn't' sell motherboards or "bare bones" systems. Apple does best selling "whole systems" not components.

 

[hot-gril]

That’s not the same thing.

Hmm, I think I misunderstood the original comment. Thought it was "no macOS Nvidia drivers, and no license." It was "use Nvidia in Macs, or else you don't get an Arm license," which is illegal.

"No macOS Nvidia drivers" makes me think of the jank drivers Nvidia provides for pre-2013 Mac Pros that have newer GTX or Quadro cards in them.

 

[4jasontv]

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

Because it’s in Apples best interest for OEMs to offer arm based windows machines. If people see many flagship Windows arm laptops at bestbuy it helps validates Apple Silicon in the public’s eye. If that does happen than it will be hard for those same OEMs to compete on performance. While people tend to focus on NVIDIAs flagship hardware they also make excellent mobile GPUs. NVIDIA can make competing products and yet both win.

 

[jole]

In the next 12 months Apple will be showing that ARM based silicon is the future of not only mobile, but laptops and desktop as well.

Only company who could really compete is probably Nvidia - possibly providing similar performance in CPU-GPU-AI chipset combo for PC industry.

If Nvidia acquires ARM, it will be a hard blow for Qualcomm, AMD and Intel.

 

[jole]

What Apple should acquire instead is TSMC

 

[Falhófnir]

If Nvidia wanted to make ARM-based CPUs, they could just buy a license for a tiny fraction of $40 billion. The only reason I can think of for this step is that Nvidia want to be in a position of control, and that would be bad news for the ARM ecosystem, which thrived due to ARM's independence. This acquisition may strengthen RISC-V to the detriment of ARM.

Exactly, the rationale of this is puzzling - if Arm continues its current business model, Nvidia get lumped with all the cost of investing to benefit their rivals, and for little or no extra benefit to themselves. If they change the open business model that really undermines the value of the company and its IP. Very odd setup!

 

[santaliqueur]

ARM used to be Switzerland, selling to everyone. If Nvidia owns it, they might not be so forthcoming with sharing improvements.

I'm baffled anyone would consider Apple's licensing agreement with Arm to not have a "this extends to all future owners" clause.

Every piece of Apple's hardware is dependent or will be) on Arm technology, and you'll have to start looking at accessories to find something that isn't. Why would Apple take such a HUGE risk? Answer: They wouldn't.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

ARM used to be Switzerland, selling to everyone. If Nvidia owns it, they might not be so forthcoming with sharing improvements.

Apple is only using the instruction set. The improvements are done by Apple itself.

 

[ejwjohn]

Did I read somewhere that the UK Government had started to raise concerns about this Nvidia purchase??? in particular that the company HQ could not be relocated to a location outside the UK... not sure if that makes any real difference but I thought I would offer it into this conversation

 

[Oculus Mentis]

I think this acquisition is mired to strengthen Nvidia position in datacentre based AI and possibly away from intel CPU in that same environment.

Not so long ago Nvidia also acquired Mellanox, the datacentre networking giant that makes that thunderbolt‘s puny 40 gbps sec look like a minion.

I don’t think Apple aficionados have anything to worry since Apple market strategy is diametrically away from datacentres and cloud computing.

Here is a sample on how ARM processors are going to be integrated in the networking fabric of GPU server farms:

NVIDIA BlueField Networking Platform

Discover more ways to transform your data center.

www.mellanox.com

If anything, Nvidia‘s innovation path seems far more exciting than Apple tedious focus on consumer electronics...

 

[smoking monkey]

Jesus you folks are slow to report the news. I read about this 24 hours ago, and you just get around to reporting on it now.

Personally I don't read or watch the news and only visit this tech site. Maybe there are many people like me getting this news for the first time. I'm sure there are plenty like you that are all over it, but plenty probably aren't. Also, it was the weekend. MRs gotta hit the beach before summer totally ends!

I guess it's too late to buy stock in Softbank...

 

[SuperCachetes]

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.

This purchase is completely independent of Apple doing badass GPUs in their own SoCs, and as others have said, I doubt they care one bit. They are already doing that and getting better at it.

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, see above. Why bet against Srouji and his merry band of SoC designers? Neither Nvidia nor AMD are going anywhere soon, but again, Apple probably doesn't care. They're doing their own thing.

 

[Rigby]

I think this acquisition is mired to strengthen Nvidia position in datacentre based AI and possibly away from intel CPU in that same environment.

What exactly could Nvidia do after the acquisition that they can't do now? It's just a licensing business.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I guess I can understand why Apple isn't involved, or stepping in, but this would be the time for Apple to actually step in and buy Arm, and own the planet. They could change the licensing landscape and fuel the industry that puts the knife in the back of Intel. nVidia and Arm? It doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, unless Intel buys nVidia soon.

Either that, or Intel is fine with GPU companies stealing their lunch, dinner, and dessert. I guess it's up to them. ?

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

This purchase is completely independent of Apple doing badass GPUs in their own SoCs, and as others have said, I doubt they care one bit. They are already doing that and getting better at it.



Because, see above. Why bet against Srouji and his merry band of SoC designers? Neither Nvidia nor AMD are going anywhere soon, but again, Apple probably doesn't care. They're doing their own thing.

But, with Apple coming out with their own 'silicon', what is their exposure to the Arm sale, in the idea that their 'silicon' is based on Arm technology, right? Do they have an iron clad license for the future, or is there no connection at all between Apple's processor aims and Arm. Apple wants to rock the industry. If they have any exposure to a potential litigious new owner of the Arm patents, is this a potentially bad thing?

 

[SuperCachetes]

But, with Apple coming out with their own 'silicon', what is their exposure to the Arm sale, in the idea that their 'silicon' is based on Arm technology, right? Do they have an iron clad license for the future? <snip>

Everything I understand about their perpetual licensing agreement (which, admittedly, I've only learned on MacRumors) points to this being a non-issue. If it was an issue, I think we would have seen a much more urgent reaction on the part of Apple.

 

[gavroche]

Nvidia has obviously done their homework and sees benifits to owning Arm. Why do fanboys always make it sound like its of no value just because Apple isn’t buying? Apple probably has enough lawsuits on its hands that it didn’t want to take on any more. But thats just a wild guess and I’m sure their are other reasons.

You do realize that Arm was developed under a joint partnership that Apple was a party to, right? They actually already owned a share of it, and later divested from it. For reasons others have already speculated. I mean, you would not be using childish and insulting labels like Fanboy without even knowing that would you?