Nvidia to acquire ARM, what impact it would have?

[Napoleonic]

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-arm-acquisition-40-billion/

this news have been boiling on for some time and yet nobody seem to take it seriously, I can't help but wonder what impact this will have on the next decade or more.

1. a. nv will go to fight in server CPU service for sure taking on everyone else, but b. will the war bleed into diy pc market? not in short to medium time scale for sure.

2. however I can't help but wonder how much of immediate impact this will have on mobile industry? from apple to qualcomm to samsung, all maybe affected, nv obviously even have less chance to win here, I mean technically they maybe could say to these guys : we're stopping you from making mobile CPUs... but that would lead to what, chaos in mobile industry and commercial suicide for nv? but I also can't see nv still give them free reign after spending that much money to acquire ARM... so what's gonna happen?

3. if nvidia does produce their ARM CPUs, which fab would they use? TSMC is the obvious destination, but considering the already fierce competition to produce there, adding a new line of CPU there may not be ideal for everyone involved, the alternative are what, samsung and china? will nv own a fab in the future?

4. will nv dominate the semiconductor industry in the future?

[Trunks0]

It would probably seriously suck. nVidia is exactly the wrong company for ARM to be purchased by as nVidia don't exactly have a great history of open standards.

[Gandalfthewhite]

worry more about two things

short term - increases in licensing fees for arm based cpus impacting companies like qualcomm and apple

long term - vertical integration so the only way to buy NV in the datacenter would be a full system of NV products not just GPUs. Possibly pushing into OEM space on consumer side as well (but this is even longer)

[pax]

Meh mobile wont tolerate crazy prices and they will do their own cpus like samsung has with exynos.

It might push Risk V.

[Napoleonic]

Originally Posted by pax

Meh mobile wont tolerate crazy prices and they will do their own cpus like samsung has with exynos.

It might push Risk V.

exynos is still ARM based, how much would it cost for the whole smartphone industry to support an entirely new CPU architecture? That prospect (nv locking ARM out from others) is so crazy that I can't believe nobody is stopping them from doing this acquisition.

[alitayyab]

There is no economic sense in Nvidia locking out ARM licencees. Their entire model revolves around licencing their IP. Their are different licence tiers that have been covered by Anandtech etc.

It is just an avenue for Nvidia to expand their product portfolio. They can't keep growing just on the back of gaming GPUs and the growth is data center business is/ was mostly driven by COVID lockdown.

Though cofounder of ARM (Dr. Hauser ) raised concerns over the sale, he wasn't in favor of selling out to softbank.


Qualcomm, Samsung, Apple, Marvell all have architectural licence from ARM which implies (AFAIK) that they can tinker with the architecture all they want. E.g. Apple whose ARM implementation is very very customized. I believe they will not be affected in anyway from this and neither will any of the others (architectural licence holders).

Finally any takeover will come with enough safeguards against closing off the architecture. ARM won't be worth much to Nvidia if it kept its IP all to itself. It can do that easily with a architectural licence (like apple does or Qualcomm etc.) . Like i said before it is doing to expand its product portfolio to continue its growth

[Nunz]

I think this is awesome. AMD has CPU/GPU, now NV does as well. Honestly, I think all these companies are realizing that they cannot just do "one" thing. AMD realized quite early on.

[pax]

Originally Posted by Napoleonic

exynos is still ARM based, how much would it cost for the whole smartphone industry to support an entirely new CPU architecture? That prospect (nv locking ARM out from others) is so crazy that I can't believe nobody is stopping them from doing this acquisition.

Like AMD with the x86 license they have a license from arm that FTC wont let them remove because it would result in a monopoly. Same for Kirin. I dont get why Apple didnt buy it TTYTT since they said they were going all arm.

Nvidia must fear being locked out of the cpu world with whats coming... maybe gpus and cpus are merging whether on die or discrete and the news we got that the Ryzen IF is on radeon 6000 gpus might be a step in that direction.

[Gandalfthewhite]

I NEVER said NV would remove licensing from anyone but I pretty much guarantee they will raise the fee.

I think in data center and possibly consumer laptop / desktop space they could dictate system integration to a point where they have vertical integration across the board so they sell full NV systems and charge whatever they want locking out AMD and Intel from that space. I do not think it will happen overnight but the push from Apple to arm on laptops is a huge tailwind for NV.

[dodger]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...or-40-billion/

Seems like all it needs is the regulators' OK and it is done.

[pax]

Its done:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54142567

UK-based computer chip designer ARM Holdings is being sold to the American graphics chip specialist Nvidia.

The cash-and-stock deal values ARM as being worth as much as $40bn (£31.2bn). It has been struck by current owner, Japanese conglomerate Softbank, four years after it acquired ARM for $32bn.

ARM's tech is at the heart of most smartphones, among many other devices.
Nvidia has promised to keep the business based in the UK, to hire more staff, and to retain ARM's brand.

It added that the deal would create "the premier computing company for the age of artificial intelligence" (AI).

"ARM will remain headquartered in Cambridge," said the US firm's chief executive Jensen Huang in a press release.

"We will expand on this great site and build a world-class AI research facility, supporting developments in healthcare, life sciences, robotics, self-driving cars and other fields."

[pax]

Time to invest?

https://www.sifive.com/

[Greasy]

This could be interesting. Nv is pushing big time into the data center space, so this is where I see them focusing this to push out intel and AMD. I don't see much impact on the mobile market, but personally I could give a **** less about it. I'm that old guy that uses my phone to stream music and get me where I need to go. I hate using the damn things, when I have this beastly ass PC sitting right here.

[logical]

Originally Posted by Greasy

This could be interesting. Nv is pushing big time into the data center space, so this is where I see them focusing this to push out intel and AMD. I don't see much impact on the mobile market, but personally I could give a **** less about it. I'm that old guy that uses my phone to stream music and get me where I need to go. I hate using the damn things, when I have this beastly ass PC sitting right here.

[koralis]

Nvidia will use ARM as the base CPU for servers, paired with nvidia compute-engines for specialized computational processing. Probably create their own blade servers and put a dent in the market.

Don't know that nvidia would increase cell phone licensing (they might), but I'd wager that ARM-in-computers will increase in cost unless the company also licenses nVidia graphics/compute. Apple had just announced switching to ARM.

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/apple-silicon/

My guess is that nVidia will be strong-ARMing them fiercely. haha.

[Galmok]

My personal interest in ARM has dropped significantly to the point that I would welcome another RISC technology, like RiskV. ARM was special in that is was independent, but now it isn't. ARM was doing well, and only time will tell if people believe in nVidia or not. I don't. I am looking forward to RiskV becoming a greater thing. Or something else. Just not ARM.

[pax]

Looks to be going belly up:

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-t...uisition-plans

NVIDIA faced strong opposition from regulatory bodies in their bid to purchase ARM Holdings, a British company owning the IP of its RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architectures. After numerous attempts to convince the market and governments that could oppose such a transaction, NVIDIA has allegedly given up the plans, which means that it will have to mark a $1.25 billion loss, money that should be considered a breakup fee.

NVIDIA’s original plan was to pay 40 billion USD for the company. However, the US chipmaker no longer expects this transaction to close.

Nvidia Corp. is quietly preparing to abandon its purchase of Arm Ltd. from SoftBank Group Corp. after making little to no progress in winning approval for the $40 billion chip deal, according to people familiar with the matter.

— Bloomberg

[Sasquach]

Originally Posted by pax

Looks to be going belly up:

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-t...uisition-plans

was looking for this old thread but couldnt find it lol.

wanted to post this bit of news.

Big blow to nvidia maybe since they could stand to lose 1.25 billion if the deal dies?

[Nunz]

Pretty stupid. The justifications for not allowing the purchase are, imo, weak

[pax]

Originally Posted by Sasquach

was looking for this old thread but couldnt find it lol.

wanted to post this bit of news.

Big blow to nvidia maybe since they could stand to lose 1.25 billion if the deal dies?

Ya the search function here is pretty broken among other things.

I suppose they could use that 1.25 billion to simply buy an arm license. Would accomplish the same thing and nvidia can get into the cpu business.

[Gandalfthewhite]

It wasn't just the UK, China did not want it to happen either. Their are a lack of advanced chip designers outside of the US ARM being the biggest of them. Having them be owned by a US based company was not something some of the bigger political players wanted.

[Trunks0]

It would have sucked for everyone if this had gone through, so happy it didn't.

[Sasquach]

Originally Posted by pax

Ya the search function here is pretty broken among other things.

I suppose they could use that 1.25 billion to simply buy an arm license. Would accomplish the same thing and nvidia can get into the cpu business.

But they already use ARM in their TEGRA products......

[Gandalfthewhite]

yeah this wasn't so NV could build arm chips this is NV wanted to leverage ARM knowledge to build a vertically integrated server stack that was ALL nvidia its why they have been buying up different server product vendors slowly building up their in house hardware divisions for enterprise.

[Megaman]

You could say this cost them an ARM……..


I’ll see my self out.

[pax]

Originally Posted by Sasquach

But they already use ARM in their TEGRA products......

Ya but what can they do with that cpu. Maybe they wanted the ability heavily custom design it at their leisure.

[Chuck]

Meanwhile I am sure the world will turn a blind eye when a Chinese firm buys them.