ARM to Nvidia

[Foxbat]

It’s one of those companies that, as ordinary members of the public, we hear little or nothing about. But look deeper and you’ll probably find that ARM is an integral part of your daily life. The number of clients reliant on its technology is pretty big and it’s a huge player in smart phone tech.

What’s more surprising is that it was a British company (owned by Japanese firm Softbank since 2016) and now it appears to be headed for the Nvidia stable in the USA. Good or bad, it’s difficult to tell but, given that Nvidia is one of the companies currently licensing ARM tech, how will the other licensees react to this?

ARM: UK-based chip designer sold to US firm Nvidia

The new owner of the Cambridge-based chip designer has promised to keep its headquarters in the UK.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[CupofJoe]

Nvidia's words sound good But everyone will have to await and see.
The trouble will come if Nvidia want exclusive or even first call on ARM's IP. That will destroy ARM in the long run. ARM's strength is that it is agnostic. Nvidia have said they want to keep it that way. While using its technology to break into new markets? Could be tricky...

 

[Foxbat]

The trouble will come if Nvidia want exclusive or even first call on ARM's IP. That will destroy ARM in the long run. ARM's strength is that it is agnostic. Nvidia have said they want to keep it that way. While using its technology to break into new markets? Could be tricky...

My thoughts too.

Apparently, Nvidia want to use ARM to develop server processors. If that's the case, will they take their eye off the ball regarding smart phone tech? Of course, smart phones are an almost saturated market so perhaps Nvidia see ARM as a way of moving on to something else more lucrative for the future. Perhaps even producing a western 5G competitor to Huawei?

 

[CupofJoe]

If you mean the 5G faster-phone network, then I think there are companies out there already in that market, for handsets and infrastructure. But who knows when you factor in politics.
If you mean the 5G Internet of Things, then I think that is a solution in search of a problem. We've been promised the IoT for the last 10 years[?] and it still seems to me a few years away. There will come a time when it becomes a thing, but it isn't any time soon.
But I think you are bang on the money with server farms. A huge amount of electricity is devoted to cloud services. If a company can deliver an energy-efficient server farm will have a huge commercial market and ARM chips are good in that respect. Microsoft has just finished an underwater server farm with good results. Removed the people and the oxygen and apparently they last longer...

 

[.matthew.]

Microsoft has just finished an underwater server farm with good results. Removed the people and the oxygen and apparently they last longer...

A link to that story for anyone who's interested

As for the ARM ownership, I reckon they'll just run it as it currently is, and ARM only really licences out its IP to other hardware manufacturers who would sue the hell out of them if they tried to be too shady with it.

 

[Cydramech]

Unlike Intel and AMD, Nvidia does not have the licensing rights to manufacture or design x86/x86_64 chips. Unlike Intel and AMD, Nvidia cannot build a unified architecture with its graphical processing unit. Acquiring ARM gives them both, destabilizing the unified architecture duopoly, and thanks to this acquisition, even the desktop market itself will not remain an x86-based monopoly for long. (For better/worse, history will decide.)