from the strong-arm-power-of-the-seal dept.
Arm China appears to be fully independent of Arm
A recent Semianalysis article by Dylan Patel goes further claiming Arm China is now an independent company from Arm. [This is refuted - see below. --JR] It all started when SoftBank formed a joint venture where Arm Limited and the SoftBank subsidiary sold a 51% stake of the company to a consortium of Chinese investors with the venture having the exclusive right to distribute Arm's IP within China. They lost control of the company that way, but it was probably due to regulations as this type of law is common in Asia, and for instance, CNX Software Limited is a Hong Kong company instead of a Thai company, as foreigners can own 49% of a company, except for some expensive and time-consuming options.
The joint venture recently gave a presentation to the where they had plans to rebrand, develop their own IP, and operate independently from Arm. This is easy to see why once we learn the rest of the story... With the "power of the seal", Allen Wu ousted executives that were loyal to Arm and kept them out of the building with hired security. Arm stopped providing IP to Arm China, and Cortex-A77 core is the latest Arm IP available to Arm China. Neoverse, Armv9, Cortex-A78, and all other recent IP have not been shared with the Chinese entity.
Arm China also unveiled the XPU family with IP blocks including NPU AI accelerators, secure processing units (SPU), image signal processor (ISP), and video processing units (VPU), but no CPU cores that I could see. It's going to be interesting to see how Chinese vendors like Allwinner or Rockchip will be able to use newer technology from Arm. The companies do not typically rely on high-end (and expensive) cores, but the Arm Cortex-A510 Armv9 core would certainly have to be part of their roadmap for the next few years. Can Arm China block those designs in China, or on the reverse, would Arm decide to block designs based on Arm China IP stealing their IP to enter markets outside of China. It just feels like a lose-lose situation at this point.
However, in ARM Refutes Accusations of IP Theft by Its ARM China Subsidiary we get the following correction from ExtremeTech:
Not everything in the original article [their version of the above report-JR] was incorrect. ARM is currently in a legal fight with ARM China and Allen Wu. Wu was voted out for reportedly using ARM China's resources to procure orders for his own company. The various allegations that Wu has hired security guards, fired a number of employees, and still holds the seal of the company have been reported on by multiple publications. There is an ongoing dispute between ARM and ARM China.
But the accusations that ARM China had stolen ARM IP and was relaunching it under its own banner? Those don't appear to be true. First, here's a formal statement, as provided to us by an ARM representative:
Arm has seen strong growth in our business as our global partners shipped more than 25 billion Arm-based chips in 2020. Of those 25 billion chips, more than 3 billion were shipped by our partners based in China.
Arm continues to have a successful working relationship with the Arm China team in support of this growth, and both the structure and ownership of the JV remains unchanged since its inception in 2018.
[...] The story ExtremeTech originally linked was based on accurate reporting but was not, itself, particularly accurate. ET regrets the error.
Also at ExtremeTech.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @05:16PM (6 children)
You can't trust Chinamen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @05:26PM
(Score: 1) by NPC-131072 on Sunday September 05 2021, @06:12PM (4 children)
Hello fren,
Those of us on the morally and intellectually superior left know you can't trust Western Capitalists. [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @07:08PM (3 children)
You know, that linked video of yours, it looks like some bat-shit crazy dude on some alt-right wing-nut-channel.
(Score: 1) by NPC-131072 on Sunday September 05 2021, @09:01PM
You mean this one? [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @09:30PM
Where is Runaway defending our right to bear ARMs?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @09:55PM
Donald, his name was Donald.
And you guys made him El Presidente.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @10:29PM (4 children)
Wu has stolen the company and Arm is covering their backside because they need the cash from nvidia.
Thank goodness for Risc-V - nothing to steal because it's all open.
Memo to Intel: dump Celeron and start fabbing Si-Five on your 7nm process in earnest. Open the door to Risc-V phones and 5G tablets, it's your only path to defeat Snapdragon.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday September 05 2021, @10:46PM (2 children)
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Alder-Lake-mobile-SKU-stack-to-feature-new-U28-and-H55-offerings-in-addition-to-four-other-TDP-segments-Alder-Lake-S-will-also-be-offered-as-a-BGA-package-at-55-W.550663.0.html [notebookcheck.net]
Before that, Intel is going to have 1+4 core @ 5-7 Watt Alder Lake SoCs for tablets.
I don't think there's anything stopping Intel or AMD from shoving x86 into the tablet space. Except it's less profitable than laptops/2-in-1s, desktops, and servers.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @11:17PM
ipadOS, Chrome OS, Android (& Fuchsia) have shown you don't need x86 compatibility. The only thing demanding x86 is Windows, and even Microsoft have worked around that with their ARM64 Surface X via emulation.
Intel possibly made the right move dumping Broxton and Sofia 5 years ago but they've had nothing to fill the void.
If they go with this hybrid Alder Lake stuff, their toxic middle management will still cripple performance not to cannibalize sales of Core - why aggressively market a $250 Chrome OS device when they could sell you an $700 one with a Core i5?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 06 2021, @06:07PM
A cheap $100-$200 x86 compatible tablet could be a nice portable gaming system. Not a high-powered gaming system, but could be cool.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 07 2021, @03:10AM
Any “news” that comes directly from the source is just “public relations” and should be treated as such.