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posted by martyb on Wednesday January 26 2022, @05:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the nothing-doing dept.

NVIDIA to drop its bid for ARM acquisition

NVIDIA faced strong opposition from regulatory bodies in their bid to purchase ARM Holdings, a British company owning the IP of its RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architectures. After numerous attempts to convince the market and governments that could oppose such a transaction, NVIDIA has allegedly given up the plans, which means that it will have to mark a $1.25 billion loss, money that should be considered a breakup fee.

NVIDIA's original plan was to pay 40 billion USD for the company. However, the US chipmaker no longer expects this transaction to close.

Also at Bloomberg and Wccftech.

Previously:

Nvidia Considering Acquisition of ARM for Over $32 Billion
Nvidia Announces $40 Billion Acquisition of Arm Holdings
Nvidia-Branded ARM CPUs; UK Trade Union Speaks Out Against Deal
Nvidia's $40 Billion ARM Acquisition: "All but Dead"?
European Commission Extends Probe of Nvidia's Arm Acquisition
Nvidia Reveals FTC has Expressed Concerns Over $40 Billion Arm Deal
U.S. Federal Trade Commission Sues to Block Nvidia's Arm Acquisition


Original Submission

Related Stories

Nvidia Considering Acquisition of ARM for Over $32 Billion 38 comments

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

Nvidia Announces $40 Billion Acquisition of Arm Holdings 20 comments

We had two submissions about this just-announced story.

Nvidia to buy Arm Holdings From SoftBank for $40 Billion

Nvidia to buy Arm Holdings from SoftBank for $40 billion

Chipmaker Nvidia has agreed to buy Arm Holdings, a designer of chips for mobile phones, from SoftBank in a deal worth $40 billion, the companies announced Sunday. The deal will include $21.5 billion in Nvidia stock and $12 billion in cash, including $2 billion payable at signing.

Softbank acquired Arm in 2016 for $31.4 billion in 2016 in one of its largest acquisitions ever. Arm is best known as the designer of an architecture used in chips in most mobile phones, including the Qualcomm chips used in most Android phones, as well as Apple's iPhone. Apple is also planning to shift its Mac computers from Intel chips to an Arm-based design.

Nvidia, whose chips are widely used to support graphics and artificial intelligence applications, including for self-driving vehicles, pledged that it would "continue Arm's open-licensing model and customer neutrality."

Interest in RISC-V set to skyrocket again.

Also at Bloomberg, The Verge, Tom's Hardware, and Wccftech.

Previously: Nvidia's Market Cap Rises Above Intel's
Nvidia Considering Acquisition of ARM for Over $32 Billion

Nvidia-Branded ARM CPUs; UK Trade Union Speaks Out Against Deal 9 comments

Jensen Huang Says Nvidia-Branded ARM CPUs Are a Possibility

According to comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during a conference call yesterday, we could see Nvidia-branded CPUs in the future, setting the stage for a new level of competition with Intel and AMD.

[...] However, during yesterday's briefing, Timothy Prickett Morgan from TheNextPlatform asked Jensen Huang, "Will you actually take an implementation of something like Neoverse first and make an Nvidia-branded CPU to drive it into the data center? Will you actually make the reference chip for those who just want it and actually help them run it?"

"Well, the first of all you've made an amazing observation, which is all three options are possible," Huang responded, "[...] So now with our backing and Arm's serious backing, the world can stand on that foundation and realize that they can build server CPUs. Now, some people would like to license the cores and build a CPU themselves. Some people may decide to license the cores and ask us to build those CPUs or modify ours."

"It is not possible for one company to build every single version of them," Huang continued, "but we will have the entire network of partners around Arm that can take the architectures we come up with and depending on what's best for them, whether licensing the core, having a semi-custom chip made, or having a chip that we made, any of those any of those options are available. Any of those options are available, we're open for business and we would like the ecosystem to be as rich as possible, with as many options as possible."

Nvidia's $40 Billion ARM Acquisition: "All but Dead"? 18 comments

Nvidia's US$40 billion deal to buy Arm is all but dead – it's a classic example of geopolitics killing innovation

Under normal circumstances, US tech giant Nvidia's takeover of British chip designer Arm for US$40 billion (£29 billion) would have sailed through without registering beyond the computing industry. Instead, it has made international headlines, with UK and EU monopolies regulators launching an in-depth investigation after outcry from competitors.

In effect, the deal is pretty much dead before it starts. At the heart of this lies a row about technological sovereignty. So what is going on?

[...] The biggest pushback, behind the scenes, actually appears to be from China. Ever since the US blacklisted Huawei and other semiconductor manufacturers in China, Beijing has been obsessed with becoming technically "self-sufficient".

While it works towards this goal, Arm has continued to license its chip architectures to Huawei. Arm claims that its chip technology is of British origin and therefore does not breach the US restrictions on exporting tech to a group of blacklisted Chinese companies. Thanks to this ongoing arrangement, Arm is one of the remaining enablers for China's semiconductor sector to keep pace with the outside world.

See also: ANALYSIS-Nvidia acquisition of Arm throws company into tech spat between U.S. and China

Previously: Nvidia Announces $40 Billion Acquisition of Arm Holdings
Nvidia-Branded ARM CPUs; UK Trade Union Speaks Out Against Deal


Original Submission

European Commission Extends Probe of Nvidia's Arm Acquisition 19 comments

Nvidia Offers Concessions in EU as Arm Deal Probe Extended

The European Commission (EC) this week extended its probe of Nvidia's proposed acquisition of Arm until at least October 27 and said that Nvidia offered the EU certain concessions to[sic] in a bid to persuade the bloc's antimonopoly regulators to approve the deal. Experts say that the EU regulatory review will take considerably longer.

In a bid to make regulators approve the deal to acquire Arm, Nvidia is eager to offer various incentives to respective countries or blocs. In the U.K., the company proposed to invest 'at least' $100 million in the country's most powerful supercomputer. The EC said that it had received concessions proposal from Nvidia as well, but did not elaborate, reports Bloomberg.

Now that the probe is formally extended to October 27, the EU competition authority will request opinion from competitors and clients before determining whether to accept Nvidia's concessions, demand more or initiate a four-month long investigation, reports Reuters. Bloomberg believes that the probe will be extended further, which will give the EC some additional time to seek feedback from interested parties and figure out what it might get from Nvidia.

Also at Notebookcheck.

Previously: Nvidia-Branded ARM CPUs; UK Trade Union Speaks Out Against Deal
Nvidia's $40 Billion ARM Acquisition: "All but Dead"?

Related: Arm Officially Supports Panfrost Open-Source Mali GPU Driver Development


Original Submission

Nvidia Reveals FTC has Expressed Concerns Over $40 Billion Arm Deal 11 comments

Nvidia has revealed the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has expressed concerns over the company's $40 billion deal to acquire Arm that was announced in September last year.

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said at the company's Q3 results call on Wednesday evening that the FTC was reviewing the deal, and that the company has been in talks with the US regulator about how it can alleviate concerns around the deal.

She added that some Arm licensees have expressed concerns or objected to the deal.

Nvidia's update about the FTC review comes a day after the UK government launched an in-depth antitrust investigation into the deal. The European Commission has also commenced an in-depth investigation into the deal.

Both the UK and European Commission investigations arose after initial reviews from both jurisdictions found the deal would lessen competition across various markets such as data centres, IoT, automotive sector, and gaming applications markets.

[...] Outside of the regulatory concerns around Nvidia's deal, the company revealed third-quarter revenues rose 9% to hit $7.1 billion, while net income jumped 84% to $2.46 billion.


Original Submission

U.S. Federal Trade Commission Sues to Block Nvidia's Arm Acquisition 10 comments

FTC Crashes NVIDIA's Party by Suing to Block its $40 Billion Deal To Acquire Arm Holdings

NVIDIA is now facing the most stringent test yet to its planned acquisition of the chip designer Arm Holdings.

To wit, the US FTC is now suing NVIDIA to block the $40 billion deal. FTC Bureau of Competition Director, Holly Vedova, said in a statement:

"The FTC is suing to block the largest semiconductor chip merger in history to prevent a chip conglomerate from stifling the innovation pipeline for next-generation technologies."

Vedova went on to note:

"Tomorrow's technologies depend on preserving today's competitive, cutting-edge chip markets. This proposed deal would distort Arm's incentives in chip markets and allow the combined firm to unfairly undermine Nvidia's rivals."

FTC press release.

Also at NYT, The Verge, and Reuters.

Previously;
Nvidia's $40 Billion ARM Acquisition: "All but Dead"?
European Commission Extends Probe of Nvidia's Arm Acquisition


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 26 2022, @06:27PM (6 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 26 2022, @06:27PM (#1215880) Journal

    I don't like to see any of the giants buying up assets. The best that can be said for Nvidia buying Arm, is that Microsoft, Google, Apple, or Intel couldn't get it. The question is, whether Arm is still up for sale?

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @07:31PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @07:31PM (#1215896)

      Yes, it's up for sale. Softbank is broke, and needs to raise cash. ARM is their best bargaining chip, because it has a high valuation but it doesn't actually produce very much revenue. Assuming that the main buyers would be other chipmakers who would all face the same regulatory obstacles as nVidia (if not worse - imagine if Intel wanted to buy it), it's likely that they will have to spin it off as an IPO. This is estimated to be net only a little more than half of what nVidia was offering.

      • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Thursday January 27 2022, @03:57AM

        by stretch611 (6199) on Thursday January 27 2022, @03:57AM (#1216034)

        Yes, it's up for sale. Softbank is broke, and needs to raise cash.

        It just earned a profit of $1.25 Billion for doing nothing.

        --
        Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @07:48PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @07:48PM (#1215903)

      Microsoft is probably the only realistic buyer on the list. Apple and Intel would be antitrust nonstarters. Google has software control over the Android platform and this would give them hardware control as well, not to mention the hostile situation with Apple (the same applies to Apple if they wanted it).

      Microsoft has a reason to want it (for Xbox and to get them into the mobile market where they have continually failed) and doesn't make chips already, which seems to be the hurdle that regulators won't accept. This would suck for AMD (who supply the CPUs for Xbox), and it might suck for Intel too (Microsoft would presumably push for ARM based PCs again). And for customers, who are happy with the PC platform the way it is. And for Linux, which is the only credible operating system on ARM. It is so much worse than nVidia buying ARM that I've nearly convinced myself it's going to happen.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @08:00PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @08:00PM (#1215908)

        Other somewhat realistic buyers probably include IBM and Amazon.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday January 26 2022, @08:22PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday January 26 2022, @08:22PM (#1215916) Journal

        Xbox and PlayStation have used x86 for 2 generations in a row now, along with most PC gamers. I doubt if they are actually keen to switch to ARM there when they have set up (relatively) easy cross-platform development between PCs and Xbox.

        Microsoft also doesn't need to acquire ARM to develop their own custom ARM chips, which is the same deal for every other company including Nvidia.

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 27 2022, @07:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 27 2022, @07:41AM (#1216096)

      And aristarchus is banned again, because Runaway has paid the bounty, 500 Simoleons, to have his critic shut up. Mafia Soylent.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday January 26 2022, @06:37PM (5 children)

    by looorg (578) on Wednesday January 26 2022, @06:37PM (#1215883)

    I'll break up with Nvidia for a lot less then $1.25 billion, for that kind of money they can break up with me anytime.

    Still isn't it kind of odd that they are paying $1.25 billion to not make a deal. Not that they didn't want to make the deal. But that the some regulatory bodies had objects that make the deal somewhat less attractive or not possible. They are basically forced to not make a deal and for that privilege they get to pay $1.25 billion dollars. Does ARM get the money or is it some kind of governmental fine? If not ARM should offer lots of others to buy them and rake in the money that way. Who needs to actually make things when you can just troll regulatory bodies and the courts and make of like some kind of bandit in the night.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @06:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @06:49PM (#1215885)

      ARM gets the money, which is called a "break fee". Under the terms of the agreement they have to invest the money into hiring blue-hairs who will then allocate the money to various social justice projects within ARM. Within two years, ARM will be irreparably broken which is why it's called a break fee.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @07:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @07:11PM (#1215891)

      Back to the source article, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-25/nvidia-is-said-to-quietly-prepare-to-abandon-takeover-of-arm [bloomberg.com]

      SoftBank and Arm are entitled to keep $2 billion Nvidia paid at signing, including a $1.25 billion breakup fee, whether the deal goes through or not.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @07:13PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @07:13PM (#1215892)

      Softbank keeps the money [marketwatch.com].

      Why is ARM still called a British company? That's where it was founded, but it's owned by Softbank, which is Japanese.

      I still think this deal should have gone through. nVidia's primary competitors, AMD and soon Intel, both make CPUs. And the types of products that nVidia makes have very little overlap with what ARM does. nVidia has made some ARM chips, but they were never very popular. At most, regulators should have gotten an agreement from nVidia to not discriminate against companies that decide to use GPUs from other manufacturers in conjunction with ARM CPUs. If anything this would have improved competition, since nVidia's GPUs have minimal presence in the ARM world, and this would have given them a good opportunity to enter the market.

      This is coming from someone who has loyally used AMD GPUs since the original Radeon!

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @07:56PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @07:56PM (#1215906)

        Chip companies attract Jews and Chinks for positions that decide architectural decisions: The Jews insert the backdoors and other exploits, the Jews and Chinks let other Jews and Chinks know how to exploit them, and Indians with no intelligence or loyalty toward Western nations serve as the rank-and-file. With Apple's ever-growing allegiance to China and their Jewish fifth-column in America, their reasons for adopting an ARM-based architecture are laid out clearly.

        But more to the point, some but not all of the Jews mentioned above are the blue-haired tranny type.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @10:42PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @10:42PM (#1215965)

        I also loyally use AMD GPUs - as boat anchors.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @08:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @08:39PM (#1215918)

    "NVIDIA has allegedly given up the plans, which means that it will have to mark a $1.25 billion loss, money that should be considered a breakup fee."

    good. fuck you, nvidia!

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 26 2022, @09:28PM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday January 26 2022, @09:28PM (#1215935) Journal

    They'll just mark up the price on their hardware and nobody will blink

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 27 2022, @12:11AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 27 2022, @12:11AM (#1215991)

    This deal was put in jeopardy by ARM China's shenanigans and is probably a good thing for NVIDIA to back out. They can now evolve in other ways such as adding DENVER decoders for 'open' ISAs such RISC-V (or OpenPOWER, if a customer such as Nintendo want PowerPC for retrogaming).

    At least Mali is now safe from cannibalization.

    Not to mention all the other players declaring early that NV had a conflict of interest.

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