Nvidia abandons deal to buy ARM *spawn*

[arandomguy]

I honestly don't know what's Nvidia's gain from buying Arm at all. The only thing I can think of are Arm's CPU engineers themselves which Nvidia can task with creating more CPUs like Grace. Beyond that Nvidia won't gain anything which they don't have already as a licensee.

I would think that they if anything at least they would benefit from having a hedge against their competitors having increased leverage via vertical integration.

This is actually one "problem" I have with the perception with respect to this deal. To me it seems like on a broader level the industry/watch dogs/critics/etc. need to go in either two ways -

1) We block future deals but also break up existing corporations with too wide of a reach.

2) We allow more mergers/acquisitions so at least there are multiple giants fighting each other.

 

[DegustatoR]

I would think that they if anything at least they would benefit from having a hedge against their competitors having increased leverage via vertical integration.

Arm IA is a freely licensed IP. You don't need to own Arm to have Arm CPUs in your product mix.

 

[arandomguy]

Arm IA is a freely licensed IP. You don't need to own Arm to have Arm CPUs in your product mix.

Owning and controlling the ISA (and ecosystem as whole to some extent) changes the dynamics in terms of how much resources you'd put into and how it's managed.

I'd speculate that if this does close there will be a much heavier emphasis in trying to displace x86 in the spaces x86 still holds the reigns in.

 

[DegustatoR]

Owning and controlling the ISA (and ecosystem as whole to some extent) changes the dynamics in terms of how much resources you'd put into and how it's managed.

I'd speculate that if this does close there will be a much heavier emphasis in trying to displace x86 in the spaces x86 still holds the reigns in.

Which spaces are these?

 

[Deleted member 2197]

Nvidia requests Commission’s clearance on acquisition of Arm – EURACTIV.com

In the EU, Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton has been pushing for scaling up domestic capacity under the notion of strategic autonomy, something hardly reconcilable with an American takeover of such a key company. Nonetheless, the file sits on the desk of EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager.

“Commissioner Vestager cannot really take account of European industrial ambitions in the Commission’s merger review, but the concerns the Commission has with semiconductors will, of course, play into the full analysis,” Erixon added.
...
At the same time, halting the deal would risk disrupting the EU-US technological collaboration before it even takes its first steps. The rediscovered warmth of transatlantic relations in the post-Trump era has been institutionalised in the Trade and Technology Council (TTC), due to kick off in Pittsburgh on 29 September.

“Blocking the deal outright would be an extremely blunt instrument. More likely, the Commission will begin a deep investigation and negotiation with Nvidia on how to maintain fair access to chip design licenses which is key, not only for the EU and the UK but also for future plans in the TTC,” Barker added.

 

[trinibwoy]

Nvidia requests Commission’s clearance on acquisition of Arm – EURACTIV.com

How is a US takeover of a Japanese owned company going to change anything with respect to the UK’s strategic autonomy? It’s weird that folks are pretending ARM is currently a UK strategic asset.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Is Softbank doing chip design? As far as I know they don't so they are dependent on ARM in its current form. Nvidia already has their own designers etc., over time they could move everything over to the US, making the UK/EU lose its most prolific chip designer, IP and most likely a lot of human skill in the process.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

How is a US takeover of a Japanese owned company going to change anything with respect to the UK’s strategic autonomy? It’s weird that folks are pretending ARM is currently a UK strategic asset.

ARM's central R&D centres are in the UK and US. SoftBank own ARM, which is headquartered in the UK and the IP is British. It's kind of arbitrary but it term's of intellectual property, that's how it work - because regulatory approval has to be based on something when primary assets are intangible. When the sale of ARM to SoftBank was approved in 2016, they had to give legal assurances about the continuance of the UK operation remaining the HQ and 'home' of the IP - at least for a period.

ARM is good for the UK economy, and persevering the integrity of the chip designs and ensuring the licensing model that has existed for years continues is the national security aspect. Frankly, it's in all country's national security's interests that a processor architecture and design so prevalent remains as it is because it would not be easy to migrate from ARM should the company be owned by somebody who decided to abuse that position. Hundreds of thousands of global companies business is oriented around ARM.

 

[trinibwoy]

ARM's central R&D centres are in the UK and US. SoftBank own ARM, which is headquartered in the UK and the IP is British. It's kind of arbitrary but it term's of intellectual property, that's how it work - because regulatory approval has to be based on something when primary assets are intangible. When the sale of ARM to SoftBank was approved in 2016, they had to give legal assurances about the continuance of the UK operation remaining the HQ and 'home' of the IP - at least for a period.

ARM is good for the UK economy, and persevering the integrity of the chip designs and ensuring the licensing model that has existed for years continues is the national security aspect. Frankly, it's in all country's national security's interests that a processor architecture and design so prevalent remains as it is because it would not be easy to migrate from ARM should the company be owned by somebody who decided to abuse that position. Hundreds of thousands of global companies business is oriented around ARM.

All that is very true. Why would it change under Nvidia? Are they not giving similar legally binding assurances?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

All that is very true. Why would it change under Nvidia? Are they not giving similar legally binding assurances?

My understanding is that SoftBank bought ARM as a going concerns with no intention to meddling it its operations. I.e, it was purely a financial investment and the legal assurance was, in part, designed to guarantee that. You would expect the same condition to apply to Nvidia and I can't see an issue as long as Nvidia provide the same assurance.

Of course SoftBank weren't a GPU bespoke vendor, so selling the IP for the widest-used processor on the planet to the company who own 83% of the discrete GPU market is a different prospect and this may be causing some competition and conflict of interest issues. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Deleted member 90741]

ARM's central R&D centres are in the UK and US. SoftBank own ARM, which is headquartered in the UK and the IP is British. It's kind of arbitrary but it term's of intellectual property, that's how it work - because regulatory approval has to be based on something when primary assets are intangible. When the sale of ARM to SoftBank was approved in 2016, they had to give legal assurances about the continuance of the UK operation remaining the HQ and 'home' of the IP - at least for a period.

ARM is good for the UK economy, and persevering the integrity of the chip designs and ensuring the licensing model that has existed for years continues is the national security aspect. Frankly, it's in all country's national security's interests that a processor architecture and design so prevalent remains as it is because it would not be easy to migrate from ARM should the company be owned by somebody who decided to abuse that position. Hundreds of thousands of global companies business is oriented around ARM.

Arm's big cores are designed in Austin, Cambridge is developing the small core.
This includes the Neoverse and the supporting IPs being developed in Austin.

NV is interested mainly in the stuff developed in Austin

 

[xpea]

NV is interested mainly in the stuff developed in Austin

NV is mainly interested in pushing even further ARM into the datacenter (where the money is) and to licence his graphic IP as complementary to the ARM CPU IP instead of MALI

 

[arandomguy]

Which spaces are these?

Essentially traditional PC spaces (eg. desktop, laptops) and enterprise (eg. servers, datacenters).

Without getting side tracked, look at that GPU vendor lockout speculation in the other sub forum. If Intel and AMD going forward can leverage their CPU/GPU vertical integration, I'd think Nvidia would want to hedge against that.

Yes they can design stand alone ARM CPUs as is but the resource and direction control is simply not the same as if they had more control.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Yes they can design stand alone ARM CPUs as is but the resource and direction control is simply not the same as if they had more control.

Wouldn't a simpler/cheaper option to license ARM (as I'm sure they do already) then spin it off in whatever direction they like? If they need to fundamentally change ARM to make their plans work, buying ARM and doing that changes ARM for everybody and any changes made will benefit their competitor's products in the same space.

Going custom ARM will - if the changes are good - give Nvidia a competitive advantage, which has got to be a better place to be in.

 

[DegustatoR]

Essentially traditional PC spaces (eg. desktop, laptops) and enterprise (eg. servers, datacenters).

Zero need to buy Arm to do that.
I also very much doubt that Nv is interested in making CPUs for traditional PC spaces.
And DC/servers aren't really enterprise.

Without getting side tracked, look at that GPU vendor lockout speculation in the other sub forum. If Intel and AMD going forward can leverage their CPU/GPU vertical integration, I'd think Nvidia would want to hedge against that.

While it's true there's again zero need to buy Arm for that.

 

[Osamar]

Depending on the evolution of the affair, I will be no surprised if Nvidia announce some kind of Risc-V innitiative.

 

[MfA]

If Intel and AMD going forward can leverage their CPU/GPU vertical integration, I'd think Nvidia would want to hedge against that.

Apple is the greater danger, they can compete against AMD/INTEL. They can't compete within Apple's closed garden.

Keeping the Apple competition in mobile strong is essential for NVIDIA.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Apple is the greater danger, they can compete against AMD/INTEL. They can't compete within Apple's closed garden. Keeping the Apple competition in mobile strong is essential for NVIDIA.

Apple have shown zero interest in selling or licensing their technology outside of their own products so their technology is moot outside of Apple's own devices. Apple also don't own the underlying IP and they have no silicon manufacturing ability.

Apple is irrelevant.

 

[nAo]

Good or better than competition technology can still attract new consumers to step into the "walled garden".

It's not a given but I'd hardly call Apple irrelevant.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Good or better than competition technology can still attract new consumers to step into the "walled garden". It's not a given but I'd hardly call Apple irrelevant.

I am talking in the context of the speculation of why Nvidia are buying ARM server chips. Apple have been out of the server business a long while and even when XServe was a thing, they weren't commercially competitive.