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Enthusiasts say it gives Nvidia “the whole stack” – a ubiquitous CPU architecture to add to its dominant GPU architecture – while to Hermann Hauser the deal is an “absolute disaster”.
Jen Hsun Huang and Masayoshi Son gushed about the potential of the partnership with Huang extolling the opportunities in computing “from the cloud, smartphones, PCs, self-driving cars and robotics, to edge IoT” . . . .blah di blah di blah.
In the four years Softbank owned it, Arm expanded into nowhere very much while becoming unprofitable.
Huang said the Arm HQ would remain in Cambridge, UK jobs would be protected and Arm’s business model would be maintained.
But the wry smile that flickered on Hauser’s face as Sky News asked him about these assurances said it all.
“The value of that is not worth the paper it’s written on unless it’s legally binding,” said Hauser, “of course Nvidia will say this at the moment, but there is no reason to believe they will keep to that long term.”
Asked by the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones if he was willing to make such assurances legally binding, Huang dodged the question.
What is the reality? Well in phones it seems unlikely that anyone will displace Arm. It’s almost impossible to topple a dominant processor architecture in a major product segment.
In MCU its architecture is not dominant but it is pervasive while, because Nvidia is not involved in the market, its ownership of Arm will probably not be seen as a threat to MCU users.
For everything else – including all the areas mentioned by Huang above – Nvidia’s ownership of Arm will very likely deter market participants from using Arm cores in the long-term.
Having said that, in Huang, Nvidia has one of the smartest CEOs in the industry. Unless his massively inflated share price has led him astray into making this expensive acquisition, one assumes he has figured out how he’s going to profit from it.
And there is a dark scenario by which he can.
In the early days of mobile when Nokia ruled the world, and Jorma Ollila ruled Nokia, Ollila said it was a priority to keep Wintel out of the mobile world.
Arm kept Wintel out, but Nvidia could be planning to restore a similarly evil empire.
I agree DontAgree no one knows if the legal obligations pass from Softbank to Nvidia. Personally I doubt it. In interviews Huang dodged answering the question.
To be fair to the government Dick, Son gave a number of legally-binding undertakings e.g. about doubling the UK headcount and keeping the HQ in the UK (which he has honoured) and I don’t expect those undertakings would have been given without government pressure.
Question is, do those obligations still apply to the new owner?
I would guess yes, I don’t think the UK government is that dumb.
So in that case, what is the worry?
Why worry? Because Son had no reason to break such undertakings, Softbank is just a technology umbrella company who take a long-term view, they don’t care where ARM R&D is done (and want to do more of it) or where the HQ is or who its products sell to.
The position of Nvidia is very different, they’re a US company with a huge R&D team there, being a US company they are cost-driven (quarterly stock price), they sell products which compete with ARM customers, they *will* prioritise their own applications, they have a history of trying to lock customers in rather than being open, and they’re subject to CFIUS.
So Son’s ethos and targets align with ARMs, but Nvidia’s don’t.
As somebody said early, a “white knight” like Siemens who don’t have the same drivers and conflicts of interest that Nvidia do would be a far better option for ARM and all its customers than Nvidia. Unfortunately ARM are British, Siemens are German, and the UK is about to leave the EU, so the odds of this happening aren’t good — and there are no UK tech companies big enough to buy ARM… 🙁
Very very true, Ian, it looks as if Nvidia will re-purpose Arm to follow an Nvidia agenda – as it did with its purchase of Icera.
I see a lot of worry and guesses, but what about the facts?
The question I had is: do those legally binding obligations still apply after the Nvidia deal is closed?
Because if that is the case then there are at least less things to worry about no?
But I guess none of us know what the facts are w.r.t. those obligations.
The government not only stood by, but it celebrated when Softbank bought Arm, and put in no restrictions on the deal. The US had already blocked similar deals for US companies, and France and Germany would also have put in place either a complete veto or strong limits on behaviour.
Having let Arm go, surely the UK has forfeited any rights to determine what a subsequent buyer does with the company.
The fuss and bother now is several years too late – we didn’t see trade unions and MPs moaning and wailing then.
Apple’s CPU hardware might have diverged physically from ARMs, but they will still need an ARM ISA/architecture license unless they want to completely rip up and start again. They could do this with a brand new proprietary ISA, which is a huge multi-year undertaking even for Apple — not just new hardware but also tools, compilers, peripherals, and throwing away years of experience in optimising ARM ISA and hardware with Apple software (which is why their phones perform so well).
The alternative would be to switch to an alternative existing ISA, but none of the possibilities (RISC-V, MIPS, i86) are attractive for phones. The only real option to avoid the same problem happening again would be RISC-V but this is very immature at the moment especially for high-performance applications like Apple need, and they’d lose their performance edge.
I guess they’ll have to make peace with nvidia and hope they don’t get screwed over in future, they’re probably safe being such a huge customer. Many others might not be so lucky, I expect there’ll be a stampede for the RISC-V hills if the deal goes through…
Unless Apple’s legal tem wasn’t on the ball I’d imagine they will continue to use the licence they already have, just like AMD continues to use the X86 licence it got in 1982.
Regarding other Architectures, it would be interesting to know they performance of SPARC, MIPS, or even Intel Atom if put onto the latest 5nm process. The reason Apple switched the Mac to X86 because of Intel’s process technology was better, not because they liked the Architecture. Some guys on the Apple forum were hoping for a return of Power PC with a G6 !
Interesting detail Nvidia contributes to Risc V. If you ask me significantly.
But judge for yourself just google “Risc V Nvidia”.
Question is what will happen with that ?
The only logical thing to do would be for Nvidia to stop contributing.
That’s a very interesting article Duncan and very weird to think that Apple could have such a hang-up about Nvidia. Yes I agree Siemens would be an excellent owner for Arm – trusted, respected and not in semis any more. And Yes I would assume the Arm cores used by Apple have morphed a long way from Arm designs by now. Somehow an integrated Arm CPU/Nvidia GPU in Apple kit seems unlikely.
I wonder what Apple will make of this given their relationship with Nvidea ?
https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management-doesnt-want-nvidia-support-in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro
What I do wonder is if Apples “ARM” CPUs have diverged so far from ARM’s standard offering that it won’t make any difference to them. Whatever happens I expect Nvidea’s Tegra processors will get all the latest upgrades first.
On a different forum someone suggested Siemens as an alternative buyer. As they already own Mentor I think that having a line of CPU IP could work well for everone.
The reason ARM has been successful in CPU licensing is exactly the same reason TSMC has been successful in foundry (and Samsung and Intel haven’t); do what you do really well, do it impartially and openly for everyone (but do it even better for those customers with very deep pockets), and don’t compete with your customers.
Nvidia buying ARM breaks this business model in so many ways it’s not funny. You can see why it could be good for Nvidia, and also why it’s probably bad for everybody else. Regardless of what “guarantees” Nvidia give (which will last until they find they can make more money by not keeping them), if the deal goes through I’d expect a massive push away from ARM towards RISC-V.
Even if the deal is blocked, unless ARM are then bought by an impartial “white night” (who?) I’d expect them to lose customers anyway, because if Nvidia don’t get them it’s obvious that somebody else could who might be even less scrupulous…
Very wise words Ian, I couldn’t agree more
I think Google would have been a better buyer, DontAgree, it knows the licensing business via Android and seems to have managed that fairly, and it is not in the semiconductor industry so will not be competing with semiconductor companies.
Yeah, I can see that.
The question I have: could you think of a better buyer for Arm?
Good point DontAgree, they might. But when the BBC asked Huang if he’d make the assurances legally binding he didn’t say Yes which, presumably, he would have done if they had been