Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Sunday August 02 2020, @11:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the big-money-in-tiny-chips dept.

Nvidia is reportedly in 'advanced talks' to buy ARM for more than $32 billion

SoftBank has been rumored to be exploring a sale of ARM — the British chip designer that powers nearly every major mobile processor from companies like Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, and Huawei — and now, it might have found a buyer. Nvidia is reportedly in "advanced talks" to buy ARM in a deal worth over $32 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Nvidia is said to be the only company that's involved in concrete discussions with SoftBank for the purchase at this time, and a deal could arrive "in the next few weeks," although nothing is finalized yet. If the deal does go through, it would be one of the largest deals ever in the computer chip business and would likely draw intense regulatory scrutiny.

Also at Guru3D and Wccftech.

Previously:
(2020-07-12) Apple Has Built its Own Mac Graphics Processors
(2020-07-11) Nvidia's Market Cap Rises Above Intel's
(2020-06-11) ARM Faces a Boardroom Revolt as it Seeks to Remove the CEO of Its Chinese Joint Venture
(2019-10-29) Fed Up Of Playing Whac-A-Mole With Network Of Softbank-Owned Patent Holders, Intel Goes To Court


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 02 2020, @02:13PM (7 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday August 02 2020, @02:13PM (#1030257)

    Softbank may be cutting their losses with ARM, having been unable to derive competitive ROI from investing the $32B in more pedestrian offerings - like an index fund.

    NVIDIA, on the other hand, could bundle ARM cores with their GPUs much the same way that Xilinx has bundled ARM cores in their FPGAs. I can imagine NVIDIA spinning up some very popular niche products coupling a decently capable ARM executive processor with a large bank of GPU processors - possibly in small / low power form factors for edge/mobile applications.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday August 02 2020, @02:21PM (3 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday August 02 2020, @02:21PM (#1030264) Journal

    Nvidia doesn't need to acquire ARM to do that. They can even create their own custom ARM cores, as they and others have done.

    Influencing the future direction of ARM while collecting the revenue may prove useful to them. I'm not sure. We'll see a lot more analysis if the deal happens.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 02 2020, @02:52PM (2 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday August 02 2020, @02:52PM (#1030278)

      Nvidia doesn't need to acquire ARM to do that.

      Of course not, they could license like Xilinx does... but... control brings benefits, one of them being unlimited negotiating power. Owning a company doesn't change physics, but it is transformative to finance and licensing.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:30PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:30PM (#1030296)

        Of course not, they could license like Xilinx does... but... control brings benefits, one of them being unlimited negotiating power.

        That's right. Many years ago we wanted to add a small amount of logic to the ARM design to help us meet requirements for certain market segments. ARM said sure you can do that but you'll need a different sort of license that will cost you 10x more money.

  • (Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Sunday August 02 2020, @02:33PM

    by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Sunday August 02 2020, @02:33PM (#1030270) Journal

    I wonder why SoftBank isn’t dumping WeWork or Uber first. Maybe no buyers...

  • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday August 02 2020, @10:32PM (1 child)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday August 02 2020, @10:32PM (#1030468)

    Softbank have no real clue what they're doing.

    They have wheelbarrows full of Saudi cash, and they throw it at whatever company they see profiled in the business magazines. They got lucky once because Alibaba turned out to be profitable, but they've burned billions on Uber, and Wework and nonsense like that.

    Based on the reports lately that Softbank are "demanding" Arm increase the cost of licenses it looks like they didn't even know what they had bought until they had bought it.

    This is all good, because that Saudi oil money will make its way into the pockets of people who will do useful things with it, like buy lunch.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 03 2020, @12:42AM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday August 03 2020, @12:42AM (#1030506)

      So, like the Saudi prince that bought AOL... shortly after they bought ARM, I bought a few shares in them, then Trump farted or something that was taken as favorable to SoftBank so they jumped like 15% in a day, I suppose I should have just sold right then.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]