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they have a legal perpetual licence. Apple were one of the original owners / Partners of Arm.

the original owners is not a perpetual license for any intellectual property into the future forever.

Being an former owner really has nothing to do with it.

Second, even though Apple has an architectural license there is likely a per unit made charge. That per unit charge is probably not fixed in time forever. ( future inflation variables , etc. there is probably some mechanism for adjustments over time. There may be a governor on how high/fast the increases can come , but flat rates "forever" is something .).

The next major iterationOf Arm won’t arrive for years and Apple have the perpetual licence.

Apple doesn't have a license to what ARM hasn't created year. a Perpetual license is about something that exists. There is nothing "perpetual" about something that does not exist yet. It means Apple can make what they have already licensed for as long as they want. ( the 'current' stuff as far into the future as want to go).

ARM couldn't responsibly sell every that haven't created . There would be nothing to generate revenue from in the future. No substantive revenue sources and the company would die over time.
 
Any one can explain why would Nvidia would buy ARM for 20 years of revenue's worth?($2B/year)?

In part, because over half of that isn't their money. It is pragmatically the stock holders money, so it is "monopoly playing money" to them. $21.5B ( or $23B if count the "make it rain" on some of the ARM employees ). Somewhat convenient if can just 'print in the basement" and use it as 'money'.

There is probably a huge implicit presumption that eventually new stock holders over time will do a partial "bail out" of this by driving the stock price up. [ Some presumption probably also that Softbank won't dump most of this in the intermediate term also. ]

Some hand waving finance folks will point to it is "just" $17B cash so perhaps only 8.5 years worth of revenue. Don't "have to pay back" the stock part (magic voodoo of the market will do that), just "have to" fill the cash reserves back up (and pay off any bonds used for this at super low interest rates. ). It is much less of a 'hurdle" is only have to pay back the cash used. ( but yeah if look at the profits ... even $17B is a head scratcher if look close. ARM's business model (high R&D overhead) is not a "print money at high margins" business model. )

Second part, is that Nvidia with use ARM resources to make more profitable Nvidia products. And that perhaps Nvidia products' higher margins partially pay for this. ( because perhaps taking the ARM instruction set R&D money and info collected to be skewed toward making better Nvidia products rather than helping ARM customers. ) A business that has much higher profit margins has a shorter return on the investment than ARM's relatively very thin margins can manage to eek out.
This may turn into a dual edge sword if too skewed because ARM customers would tend to start to exit. If Apple buys no more architectural upgrades that profit margin is zero. If most of the other Arch liensce holders also go to no new features ... again pragmatically probably have negative margin.

There is a big of a bet here by Nvidia that ARM is "too big" to fail. Big in as too broadly licensed, not that it generates lots of revenue. (or at least fail over the next 4-10 years. ). If ARM is going to collapse in 4-10 years then if Nvidia is controller the direction and scope of the collapse they can front run that process better than the others who don't have their hand on the controls.

Depends on how Nvidia's products go then perhaps they can operate ARM as a breakeven division. That it won't "pay back" the purchase price at all. The whole burden would be shifted onto the much higher margin datacenter products. That is probably the only way the "open license" model survives.
The problem with that is Nvidia already made a large Mellanox purchase that also needs to show an return on investment. That is why most of this on inflated priced stock. If the stock doesn't fall back to reality then they can get away with it.
 
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Does this mean Apple will have to allow Nvidia GPU drivers in MacOS again?

Not even in the slightest.

Nvidia is buying ARM to get bigger leverage into the Datacenter (moving into selling whole data center computers, not just GPU components ) and the embedded AI processor market. Neither one of those has anything to do with macOS's small subset of the classic general PC market. In fact, this probably means that Nvidia could care even less about the relatively small revenue to be generated in the macOS space.

Most likely ths makes the situation worse not better. On the Apple view of the equation they care even less about what Nvidia's primary objectives are also. So the mutual " I don't need you" is even higher on both sides. This very much has potential of making the feud between the two worse ; not better. Growth markets for both are in different directions.
 
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It does make SoftBank the largest shareholder of Nvidia. That’s still only 10%, but they very likely get a seat at the table.
Ok, that is motivation to sell. But what is in for NV? They don’t need to own arm to make gpus for arm based systems, not for starting to make their own arm based CPU’s. And spending 40B$ for a steady licensing income stream?
 
Ok, that is motivation to sell.

The motivation for Softbank to sell? They made a large number of very bad investments. WeWork ... disaster. ARM ... grossly overpaid for it. That list goes on and on.

Softbank really , really needs cash. That $12B cash ( possibile $17B with bonus if that pans out) is desparately needed by Softbank. ARM was one of the few investments they made that might be worth a substantial amount of money. Even better if find an even bigger goober to may even more money for it than Softbank over paid for.

Softbank gets cash and a big sake in Nvidia ( which they'll probably sell off over time when can get better capital gains tax rate on those chunk sales. ) . If Nvidia stock continues to skyrocket then perhaps hold onto it and point to that as their shrewd investor prowlness. (not really , but they are arm flapping in the investor space anyway. ) and as long as intesrest rate a about zero use it as collateral borrow and buy/invest.



But what is in for NV? They don’t need to own arm to make gpus for arm based systems, not for starting to make their own arm based CPU’s. And spending 40B$ for a steady licensing income stream?

If NV wants to take silicon product business away from other ARM customers there is big upside in owning ARM.

The ARM license revenues have nothing to do with $40B. There is no way to rationally justify that price just on ARM's previous business model at all.

There is going to be some "synergy" spin that Nvidia is going to work as to why this pays off. It has to do with Nvidia sell more much higher margin products and more whole computer systems ( not just components. or even lower margin just Intellectual property designs licenses . )
 
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Does this mean Apple will have to allow Nvidia GPU drivers in MacOS again?

No...but I wouldn’t be surprised if NVIDIA shows their sorry ass back up on Apple’s doorstep trying to fish for patent troll type licensing fees as they have in the past, which is why they got tossed from the Apple lineup after the last purchase contract was fulfilled.

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish! That’s NVIDIA’s motto, which I hope comes back to extinguish them at some point.
 
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Reuters writes that a backlash from other chip companies is expected, particularly ARM customers that compete with Nvidia e.g. in the automotive sector. Others are concerned that they will be caught in the firing lines of the US/China trade war once ARM becomes part of a US company.

 
Probably me...I cannot stand NVIDIA or their business practices. They can take their “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” and shove it up their a**.

NVIDIA is an existential threat to Apple and their arrogance is what got them tossed. Their belief that their GPUs are more important than the CPU (AMD, Intel or anyone) begs the question if they actually understand how computing works. I have almost divested myself of any NVIDIA GPUs that I own.

Sure, if I need Lara Croft’s t*ts in the highest fidelity, I’m sure NVIDIA is the go to, but it still not the real thing, and it never will.
I don't care about a company's supposed "arrogance." NVIDIA is absolutely destroying the competition with their RTX cards. That's undebatable. Especially with their REDCode optimizations for video professionals. AMD and Apple aren't even in the same ballpark as NVIDIA in that regard, and it's an utter shame that Apple and NVIDIA can't work together to get that kind of power into the Mac Pro.
 
Reuters writes .... Others are concerned that they will be caught in the firing lines of the US/China trade war once ARM becomes part of a US company.


Will be ?
it already happened:

tilting

tilting

Under the bus

a major portion of ARM’s R&D work is done in Austin TX USA . There already was enough of a USA patent overlap that it has been leveraged to ding Huawei/HiSilicon . Nvidia ownership isn’t all that more exposed .
it would give more knobs to squeeze and turn . The Chinese government also squeezed ARM into selling more rights to a Chinese company . So already being used as a pawn by both sides .


I think there is going to be more non US , tech companies that are independent of US more skittish about being bought due to wanting to avoid getting dragged into messy mud wrestling trade stuff . This was probably a very bad ‘card’ to play . HiSilicon was paying for license use . That is way better than just stealing ( which Hussein has been caught with hand in cookie jar before . No pure Boy Scout here )
 
Because a $699 gtx 3080 is 3x faster than my $3000 Vega pro ii

die size of about 620mm2 versus about 330mm2 . The tech in Vega Pro II also shipped almost two years previously. Really more so comparing two different development cycles . A big AMD die will cycle through before the end of the year . That will be a more “ apples to apples “ comparison . It won’t necessarily even out to a even performance but extremely likely also won’t be anywhere near 3x gap.


When Apple picks that AMD new iteration up probably will take longer , but quality macOS drivers for Nvidia would have been longer too .

there is no NVLink on the 3080 . That is pragmatically a major contributor to the price gap Here whether like it or not .
 
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die size of about 620mm2 versus about 330mm2 . The tech in Vega Pro II also shipped almost two years previously. Really more so comparing two different development cycles . A big AMD die will cycle through before the end of the year . That will be a more “ apples to apples “ comparison . It won’t necessarily even out to a even performance but extremely likely also won’t be anywhere near 3x gap.


When Apple picks that AMD new iteration up probably will take longer , but quality macOS drivers for Nvidia would have been longer too .

there is no NVLink on the 3080 . That is pragmatically a major contributor to the price gap Here whether like it or not .
The thing is, I have the Vega II and it it shipped for the first time in a Mac in novemeber when I purchased it. It still isn't as fast as the 2080 ti, which is "apples to apples" I just use the windows side when I need to video work and OS X when I'm doing music.
 
Nice spin their pal. You go from your misleading comment attributing undue credit for Apple developing ARM, and now show a quotation that doesn't prove anything. Old Apple had a vested interest in ARM at some point, the same amount as VLSI, but had nothing to do with its origin. British company Acorn who invented it in 1983. VLSI and Apple joined in years later to hop on the train for a while.

Why don't you brush up on your reading comprehension a bit first before you go lecturing others. Apple being a stakeholder for a brief time doesn't mean jack now.

Wow... won't even bother to reply to what you said, clearly no point. You would just keep spouting insults. Pretty hard to have an actual intellectual conversation with someone like you.
 
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?
"... was developed" can be interpreted a number of ways. It is certainly true that Apple had joint ownership during some of the later stages of development of ARM but if anyone were to read "was developed under a joint partnership" as saying that Apple was in any way involved during the initial design and development phase of ARM then that is wrong.

The initial ARM development was done wholly by Acorn Computers starting in 1983 with first silicon coming back in 1985 by which time Olivetti had taken a stake of just under 50% in Acorn to (unsuccessfully) bail it out of a bad financial situation, a financial situation ironically created so some extent by Acorn trying to go head-to-head with Apple in the US education market and failing badly. The existence of the ARM project was not disclosed to Olivetti during the negotiations, it was kept on a strictly need-to-know basis even within Acorn. Most of the approx 450 Acorn staff at that time did not know of the existence of the ARM project even after first silicon came back.

Olivetti subsequently took an approx 80% share in Acorn in late 1985 since the initial investment had failed to remedy the financial situation. It wasn't until 1990 when ARM was finally spun off as a separate company so the first 7 or so years of development was done by Acorn Computers, or maybe one could argue Olivetti since it owned about 80% of Acorn for most of that time, but definitely not Apple.

As early as 1986, although the concept of licensing the design and IP hadn't really solidified yet and Acorn was thinking more in terms of selling actual silicon or even complete systems, Acorn was actively pursuing OEM opportunities to the extent that it did a major corporate reorganisation to split the product teams into two separate divisions each headed up by a board level director, one to develop in-house products in particular the ARM-based Acorn Archimedes and also a scientific workstation running Unix (headed up by John Horton) and the other division was putting out ARM evaluation kits (an ARM co-processor for the BBC micro) to potential adopters (headed up by Andrew McKernan) with a view to recruiting OEM customers. I can't remember when that split into product group and OEM group happened, either late 1986 or early 1987.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make, just to clear up any potential misunderstanding that might arise, is that Acorn on its own did the initial ARM development and a number of subsequent iteration before Apple appeared on the scene.
 
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In part, because over half of that isn't their money. It is pragmatically the stock holders money, so it is "monopoly playing money" to them. $21.5B ( or $23B if count the "make it rain" on some of the ARM employees ). Somewhat convenient if can just 'print in the basement" and use it as 'money'.

There is probably a huge implicit presumption that eventually new stock holders over time will do a partial "bail out" of this by driving the stock price up. [ Some presumption probably also that Softbank won't dump most of this in the intermediate term also. ]

Some hand waving finance folks will point to it is "just" $17B cash so perhaps only 8.5 years worth of revenue. Don't "have to pay back" the stock part (magic voodoo of the market will do that), just "have to" fill the cash reserves back up (and pay off any bonds used for this at super low interest rates. ). It is much less of a 'hurdle" is only have to pay back the cash used. ( but yeah if look at the profits ... even $17B is a head scratcher if look close. ARM's business model (high R&D overhead) is not a "print money at high margins" business model. )

Second part, is that Nvidia with use ARM resources to make more profitable Nvidia products. And that perhaps Nvidia products' higher margins partially pay for this. ( because perhaps taking the ARM instruction set R&D money and info collected to be skewed toward making better Nvidia products rather than helping ARM customers. ) A business that has much higher profit margins has a shorter return on the investment than ARM's relatively very thin margins can manage to eek out.
This may turn into a dual edge sword if too skewed because ARM customers would tend to start to exit. If Apple buys no more architectural upgrades that profit margin is zero. If most of the other Arch liensce holders also go to no new features ... again pragmatically probably have negative margin.

There is a big of a bet here by Nvidia that ARM is "too big" to fail. Big in as too broadly licensed, not that it generates lots of revenue. (or at least fail over the next 4-10 years. ). If ARM is going to collapse in 4-10 years then if Nvidia is controller the direction and scope of the collapse they can front run that process better than the others who don't have their hand on the controls.

Depends on how Nvidia's products go then perhaps they can operate ARM as a breakeven division. That it won't "pay back" the purchase price at all. The whole burden would be shifted onto the much higher margin datacenter products. That is probably the only way the "open license" model survives.
The problem with that is Nvidia already made a large Mellanox purchase that also needs to show an return on investment. That is why most of this on inflated priced stock. If the stock doesn't fall back to reality then they can get away with it.

hmmm...Nvidia is about $100B worth more than intel, where intel makes a CPU that goes in about every computer that is out there while Nvidia basically makes GPU cards...this is a real head scratcher. Also Nvidia is worth about $350B while AMD is at $90 where AMD builds both GPUs and CPUs.

I am only guessing Nvidia profit margin is like 10X manufacturing cost.
 
Did you just seriously compare

(a) a gaming card with a Pro/CAD/VP card;
(b) a yet to ship tech with a two year old tech; and more hilariously
(c) retail price with an Apple-surcharged price?

I don't even know where to begin...
I suggest we start with the years old 2080ti also out performing my Vega ii. Again, in real world use, I need to boot into windows to take advantage of the nvidia gpu. All Mac has to do is sign their drivers.
 
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Ok let's, and let's do the easy part: what's the Apple surcharge, 2x, 5x, 10x RRP?
Who cares? I spent about $20k on my Mac Pro, but I was able to use 3rd party ram, third party NVMEs, and through in a 2080TI for the windows side. I'm not asking apple to release a new card, I'm just asking them to sign the drivers that Nvidia has developed.
 
Wow... won't even bother to reply to what you said, clearly no point. You would just keep spouting insults. Pretty hard to have an actual intellectual conversation with someone like you.
I have to apologize. I don’t know why I got so worked about something so silly. Not worth it and I‘m usually a pretty calm person.

I do wonder the implications though of Nvidia officially buying ARM. I hope this doesn’t cause any favouritism or early access scenarios. I’m sure Apple and Qualcomm will keep a close eye on how Nvidia goes forward with this.

On the plus side, it could mean that the future Nvidia Tegra chip in a next gen Nintendo Switch could rival the graphics of home consoles. That would be a very good outcome!
 
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