Nvidia has approached Softbank and is considering buying ARM Holdings

[uzzi38]

Will update with articles as they come out (they haven't yet but news is public). For now just a couple of Tweets:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1286003982079533056

https://twitter.com/x/status/1286004990327132161

This is a real significant move for Nvidia, having a huge role in ARM core designs could have major implementations down the line. Most importantly, it secures them a platform and ecosystem down the line.

Oh and I guess Nvidia becomes the defacto standard for GPU IP for mobile instead of Mali. That too.

EDIT: Bloomberg article here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ompany-arm-is-said-to-attract-nvidia-interest

 

[soresu]

Rumours are that they did.
But I guess idiot-Jensen would not be satisfied with anything else than the whole thing.

Didn't the same thing happen with Intel once where he wanted to be the CEO of a merged Intel/nVidia company?

Derp, that guy has an ego to make Elon Musk blush.

 

[Saylick]

Didn't the same thing happen with Intel once where he wanted to be the CEO of a merged Intel/nVidia company?

Derp, that guy has an ego to make Elon Musk blush.

It was AMD. Before AMD acquired ATI, they originally wanted to acquire Nvidia, but JHH would not allow it unless they agreed that he would be the CEO of the combined company... The guy who was getting bought out wanted to be head of the company that bought him out. Yeesh. Needless to say, they turned him down.

So AMD Chief Executive Hector Ruiz decided to bet that AMD could get ahead of rival Intel by grabbing a piece of the market for the graphics processing units (GPUs) that allow PCs and gaming consoles to render sophisticated images.

Unlike CPUs, which are typically built around a small number of powerful, hyper-responsive computing engines, GPUs rely on larger swarms of computing cores to grind through highly repetitive tasks -- like rending graphics -- in a hurry. Fusing CPUs and GPUs would let AMD hit the PC market with something Intel wasn’t ready to offer.

AMD’s first target: Nvidia. But Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang (see our January 7, 2008 cover story on Nvidia "Shoot to Kill") insisted on being chief executive of the combined company, according to a former AMD employee (Nvidia declined to comment for this story).

 

[ThatBuzzkiller]

https://www.reuters.com/business/softbanks-66-bln-sale-arm-nvidia-collapses-ft-2022-02-08/

Nvidia will forever be without a CPU guru culture in the far future ...

 

[Saylick]

 

[Saylick]

NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Announce Termination of NVIDIA’s Acquisition of Arm Limited

NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG) today announced the termination of the previously announced transaction whereby NVIDIA would acquire Arm Limited from SBG.

nvidianews.nvidia.com

It's done done. Thread can be closed now, just like Nvidia's dreams of having a competitive CPU.

 

[NTMBK]

NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Announce Termination of NVIDIA’s Acquisition of Arm Limited

NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG) today announced the termination of the previously announced transaction whereby NVIDIA would acquire Arm Limited from SBG.

nvidianews.nvidia.com

It's done done. Thread can be closed now, just like Nvidia's dreams of having a competitive CPU.

It's not like NVidia didn't have other chances. They could have acquired Cavium, they could have acquired Nuvia...

My guess is that they are going to try and acquire Ampere. Ampere have a new custom ARM CPU launching this year on 5nm: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16684/ampere-roadmap-full-custom-cores And the company is even headquartered in Santa Clara. It's literally a 5 minute drive across town. If NVidia wants to jump start their ARM CPU team, then it's an obvious acquisition target.

 

[Thibsie]

It's not like NVidia didn't have other chances. They could have acquired Cavium, they could have acquired Nuvia...

My guess is that they are going to try and acquire Ampere. Ampere have a new custom ARM CPU launching this year on 5nm: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16684/ampere-roadmap-full-custom-cores And the company is even headquartered in Santa Clara. It's literally a 5 minute drive across town. If NVidia wants to jump start their ARM CPU team, then it's an obvious acquisition target.

Yeah but NVIDIA had to own the whole thing, you know...

 

[Heartbreaker]

It's officially over. Both NVidia and Softbank have issued PR stating it. ARM is going to IPO:

$66 billion deal for Nvidia to purchase Arm collapses

Arm owner SoftBank will instead spin the business off via an IPO.

arstechnica.com

 

[Thibsie]

Good.

 

[ThatBuzzkiller]

Nvidia may have dominated GPU compute for over a decade but they have no future for heterogenous compute ...

AMD and Intel now have CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs too so they'll lead the future in heterogenous compute and nearly no talented engineers would ever want to work at Nvidia's CPU design teams no matter how high the pay is because they're not prestigious enough in the industry compared to the others. Buying out ARM was also Nvidia's attempt to fix their desperately pathetic CPU culture ...

 

[Stuka87]

NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Announce Termination of NVIDIA’s Acquisition of Arm Limited

NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG) today announced the termination of the previously announced transaction whereby NVIDIA would acquire Arm Limited from SBG.

nvidianews.nvidia.com

It's done done. Thread can be closed now, just like Nvidia's dreams of having a competitive CPU.

Oh, they can still have a competitive CPU. They just can't blackmail the industry now.

 

[nicalandia]

Oh, they can still have a competitive CPU. They just can't blackmail the industry now.

They do, they have a perpetual ARM CPU license or also chose to go with RISC-V CPU Or OpenPOWER, OpenSPARC. But as you mentioned. They can't blackmail or strong arm people/corporations on buying their niche products

 

[Doug S]

They do, they have a perpetual ARM CPU license or also chose to go with RISC-V CPU Or OpenPOWER, OpenSPARC. But as you mentioned. They can't blackmail or strong arm people/corporations on buying their niche products

According to articles I've seen about Nvidia throwing in the towel they have a 20 year license, not perpetual. Whether that's the standard term for an architectural license, and whether that even extends to Apple who may have got a special deal via their past partial ownership of ARM Ltd, who knows.

Though in the computing world a 20 year license might as well be perpetual.

 

[igor_kavinski]

nVidia paying the fees still saves them $60+ billion that could have been wasted through bad management of the ARM IP. Maybe now they can spend $10 billion in R&D and develop a CPU from the ground up. Or they could entice the lead Apple CPU design engineer to join them.

 

[nicalandia]

According to articles I've seen about Nvidia throwing in the towel they have a 20 year license, not perpetual. Whether that's the standard term for an architectural license, and whether that even extends to Apple who may have got a special deal via their past partial ownership of ARM Ltd, who knows.

Though in the computing world a 20 year license might as well be perpetual.

Yes, I was confusing AMD with Nvidia.

Is this the original agreement?

EX-2.1

 

[NTMBK]

nVidia paying the fees still saves them $60+ billion that could have been wasted through bad management of the ARM IP. Maybe now they can spend $10 billion in R&D and develop a CPU from the ground up. Or they could entice the lead Apple CPU design engineer to join them.

Or they could buy Ampere, and get a bunch of Intel vets and a custom CPU targeting the datacenter.

 

[Doug S]

Yes, I was confusing AMD with Nvidia.

Is this the original agreement?

EX-2.1

That's the share purchase agreement, not the contract for the architectural license.

 

[moinmoin]

So now that the $40 billion sale fell through SoftBank is planning an IPO for $8 billion (edit: which amounts to 16% of the float, if they expect that to reflect a valuation of $50 billion, thanks @Doug S for the needed clarification).

SoftBank's Arm aims to raise at least $8 billion in U.S. IPO, sources say

Arm Ltd, the British chip designer owned by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp , is likely to aim to raise at least $8 billion from what is expected to be a blockbuster U.S. stock market launch this year, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

www.reuters.com

Theoretically Nvidia could try again here to at least become an influential major shareholder at a cheaper price. Same with all other holders of stakes in the ARM ecosystem like Samsung, Qualcomm, MediaTek but also TSMC, AMD and arguably Intel should be interested as well. Everybody participating could ensure Arm becoming and staying a more neutral independent company unlike in the last bunch of years under SoftBank.

 

[scannall]

So now that the $40 billion sale fell through SoftBank is planning an IPO for $8 billion.

SoftBank's Arm aims to raise at least $8 billion in U.S. IPO, sources say

Arm Ltd, the British chip designer owned by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp , is likely to aim to raise at least $8 billion from what is expected to be a blockbuster U.S. stock market launch this year, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

www.reuters.com

Theoretically Nvidia could try again here to at least become an influential major shareholder at a cheaper price. Same with all other holders of stakes in the ARM ecosystem like Samsung, Qualcomm, MediaTek but also TSMC, AMD and arguably Intel should be interested as well. Everybody participating could ensure Arm becoming and staying a more neutral independent company unlike in the last bunch of years under SoftBank.

I've always felt all the large ARM producers should own it jointly and equally. Apple, Samsung, Media Tek, Qualcomm, Nvidia etc.

 

[Doug S]

So now that the $40 billion sale fell through SoftBank is planning an IPO for $8 billion.

If you note, the article says they expect ARM to be valued at around $50 billion - in other words they are only offering a relatively small portion of shares (16% of the float, if they expect $8 billion sales to reflect a valuation of $50 billion)

I never thought ARM was worth what Nvidia was looking to pay, let alone this higher figure ARM is hoping for, but I guess we'll see. They'd have to alter their licensing in the way Qualcomm claims they are to generate sufficient revenue to be worth that (and of course not drive too many customers in the arms of RISC-V or other alternatives)

 

[A///]

For ARM to be worth that much they need to offer compelling base designs. A company that's managed to f itself over numerous times now shouldn't dictate squat.

 

[Nothingness]

(removed, Doug S already fixed moinmoin misunderstanding)

 

[moinmoin]

If you note, the article says they expect ARM to be valued at around $50 billion - in other words they are only offering a relatively small portion of shares (16% of the float, if they expect $8 billion sales to reflect a valuation of $50 billion)

Thanks for the much needed clarification, I edited my post accordingly.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

If another company comes up with compelling chip designs that are competitive, will ARM still be worth $40 billion?

 

[moinmoin]

If another company comes up with compelling chip designs that are competitive, will ARM still be worth $40 billion?

As @Doug S already stated it's debatable that Arm is worth that much anyway. That's mostly a power play by its owner SoftBank.

Most of Arm's value is in the dominance in the mobile space, with Android and iOS pretty much all of the huge mobile market runs some form of ARM based ISA. The biggest problem is Arm doesn't really have a leverage there to increase profit. The recent push likely due to pressure from SoftBank to change that through lawsuits and the likes sees many industry players looking at alternatives like RISC-V instead, further accentuating Arm's lack of leverage.

In my opinion Arm's value will stand and fall with its perceived dominance in the mobile market. If/once a competing ISA like RISC-V is being seen as a drop in replacement for ARM in e.g. Android phones Arm's value is bound to drop hard, regardless of the chip designs it offers.