Nvidia is reportedly in 'advanced talks' to acquire Arm Holdings
Graphics chipmaker Nvidia is reportedly in "advanced talks" to acquire Arm Holdings, which if completed, could be the largest deal to date in the semiconductor industry.
Credit: Arm Holdings
It was reported earlier in July that SoftBank, the company that owns Arm Holdings, was mulling a sale or initial public offering of the chip design company.
Following subsequent reports that Nvidia was interested in acquiring the SoftBank-owned company, Bloomberg reported on Friday that the chipmaker was in "advanced talks" to buy Arm Holdings. More than that, the company was said to be the only firm in that stage of the negotiation.
Nvidia is already the largest graphics chipmaker in the world, and a purchase of Arm Holdings could propel the company to become a significant player in the silicon industry. SoftBank and Nvidia plan to reach a deal within the next few weeks.
A purchase of Arm Holdings would be the largest deal to date in the semiconductor industry, with Bloomberg reporting that an IPO of the company could be worth $44 billion. Previously, the largest-ever deal in the chipmaking industry was in 2015, when Avago merged with Broadcom in a $37 billion deal. It's likely that companies which license the ARM instruction set will oppose the acquisition until assurances can be made that ARM will continue to be available to companies equally.
Concerns about antitrust were what originally resulted in SoftBank, a neutral party, acquiring Arm Holdings the last time it went up for sale.
The sale or IPO of Arm Holdings is significant to Apple because the Cupertino tech giant licenses the ARM instruction set for use in its own A-series chips. ARM-based technology will only get more important to Apple because of the transition to Apple Silicon in its Mac devices.
A report from earlier in July also indicated that SoftBank approached Apple about the possibility of a purchase. The Cupertino iPhone maker reportedly declined the bid.
Along with Apple, companies like Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD all license technology from Arm Holdings.
Credit: Arm Holdings
It was reported earlier in July that SoftBank, the company that owns Arm Holdings, was mulling a sale or initial public offering of the chip design company.
Following subsequent reports that Nvidia was interested in acquiring the SoftBank-owned company, Bloomberg reported on Friday that the chipmaker was in "advanced talks" to buy Arm Holdings. More than that, the company was said to be the only firm in that stage of the negotiation.
Nvidia is already the largest graphics chipmaker in the world, and a purchase of Arm Holdings could propel the company to become a significant player in the silicon industry. SoftBank and Nvidia plan to reach a deal within the next few weeks.
A purchase of Arm Holdings would be the largest deal to date in the semiconductor industry, with Bloomberg reporting that an IPO of the company could be worth $44 billion. Previously, the largest-ever deal in the chipmaking industry was in 2015, when Avago merged with Broadcom in a $37 billion deal. It's likely that companies which license the ARM instruction set will oppose the acquisition until assurances can be made that ARM will continue to be available to companies equally.
Concerns about antitrust were what originally resulted in SoftBank, a neutral party, acquiring Arm Holdings the last time it went up for sale.
The sale or IPO of Arm Holdings is significant to Apple because the Cupertino tech giant licenses the ARM instruction set for use in its own A-series chips. ARM-based technology will only get more important to Apple because of the transition to Apple Silicon in its Mac devices.
A report from earlier in July also indicated that SoftBank approached Apple about the possibility of a purchase. The Cupertino iPhone maker reportedly declined the bid.
Along with Apple, companies like Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD all license technology from Arm Holdings.
Comments
As I said before, this is not only a mistake, putting control of the ARM architecture directly in the hands of China (NVIDIA is Intel, and Intel is pretty much China), but it's going in the exact direction I expected it to go.
I called this when it was first reported, and everyone said I was being Chicken Little.
What now, brown cow?
1. ARM would not sell without ensuring that all current licensees are safe.
2. No government would allow the sale unless nVIDIA guaranteed to continue to design and license IP under fair terms.
nVIDIA already has an ARM license, so I'm not sure what good owning the company would actually do other than a new revenue source. Oh, and of course enabling them shove their GPU designs down everyone's throats, like Intel does.
ARM IP, Mellanox IP and NVIDIA IP all under one roof. That also sounds like a pretty a strong combination for the server market.
The only caveat is that people who use AMD GPUs tend to use AMD CPUs for business and tech reasons ... it is cheaper plus it is a turnkey CPU/GPU set without having to write custom code to optimize it. But even that isn't an ironclad requirement: see Apple with their Intel CPUs and AMD Radeon Pro GPUs in several of their Mac SKUs.
This is what I am talking about: how certain Apple fans view everyone who isn't an Apple supplier as "the enemy."
My comment was addressing why NVIDIA would even want them in the first place and what sort of impact that could have on their business.
2. Intel IS NOT China. They are an American company based in Santa Clara, CA U.S.A. (Actually just "down the road" from nVIDIA).
3. Maybe you're thinking of AMD buying ATI/Radeon? Even then AMD is an American company -and ATI was a Canadian company.