Update #2 [Tue 25th Jan, 2022 14:15 GMT]: Nvidia has officially abandoned its proposed purchase of UK chip designer Arm after regulatory hurdles proved insurmountable (thanks, The Guardian).
Arm owner SoftBank – which purchased Arm back in 2016 for $32 billion – said today that Arm would now prepare for a stock market flotation before the end of the financial year to 31st March, 2023.
In a separate statement, Arm has revealed that it has appointed Rene Haas as its CEO, effective immediately. Haas joined Arm in 2013 and worked for seven years at Nvidia prior to that.
SoftBank chief executive, Masayoshi Son, said:
Rene is the right leader to accelerate Arm’s growth as the company looks to re-enter the public markets.
Update #1 [Tue 25th Jan, 2022 14:15 GMT]: Bloomberg is reporting that Nvidia is about to abandon its proposed $40 billion purchase of British chip designer Arm from SoftBank. The move was revealed in September of 2020.
Nvidia – which makes the chips that power the Switch, Switch Lite and Switch OLED – has apparently told partners that it does not expect the deal to reach its conclusion. Meanwhile, SoftBank is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) of Arm.
Speaking to Bloomberg, an Nvidia spokesperson said that the firm still thinks the acquisition "provides an opportunity to accelerate Arm and boost competition and innovation."
Arm and SoftBank are yet to comment on the report, but there were doubts at the time the deal was announced that it would get past North American, British and EU regulatory bodies, with concerns being raised that such a merger would be bad for competition.
Original Story [Mon 14th Sep, 2020 09:30 BST]: Arm – the British semiconductor design firm behind the mobile tech found in millions of devices worldwide via companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Qualcomm – is being acquired by Nvidia from Japanese company SoftBank for a whopping $40 billion.
Initially, at least, it seems that Nvidia is keen to keep things as they are, and Arm will continue to be based in the UK – Nvidia has even pledged funds to create an AI research centre at Arm's HQ, which hints that the deal is more about the future of AI than it is leveraging Arm's network of technology. Nvidia has also stated that it intends to create massive Arm-based data centres for cloud computing and other uses.
However, in the long term, it's not unreasonable to see the acquisition as Nvidia's way of forcing its way into the CPU sector, an area in which it has traditionally struggled. The company's primary area is creating GPUs, and outside of its Tegra "system on a chip" line – which is used in the Nintendo Switch – it is more concerned with AI and in-car tech.
Early Tegra chips were intended for smartphones and MP3 players like the ill-fated Microsoft Zune, but Nvidia found it difficult to make headway in a smartphone sector dominated by Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon chipsets, and instead focused on putting its silicon into tablets and self-made devices, like the Nvidia Shield line – the creation of which arguably helped catch Nintendo's eye when it came to the tech it wished to use inside the Switch.
Arm's business model is based around licencing its IP to other companies for manufacture, rather than producing the chips itself. That means once the deal goes through, Nvidia (via Arm) will receive a royalty on every Arm chipset manufactured in the world.
For Arm, it's yet another indication of how successful the business – which was founded back in 1990 off the back of Acorn Computers' Archimedes home computer – has become in recent years. Arm chips are used in almost all smartphones these days, and have previously been found in the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, 3DS and Switch (Nvidia's Tegra "System on a chip" uses Arm silicon as its CPU). Apple has recently decided to use Arm chips in its future MacBooks, and Microsoft is also creating a version of Windows and Surface OS which will run on Arm. That goes some way to explaining why Nvidia has had to pay $10 billion more than the $30 billion SoftBank purchased the firm for in 2016 – at a time when Nvidia was worth roughly the same. Today, Nvidia is worth $300 billion.
So, how does this benefit Nintendo? Nvidia and Arm now being under the same roof (so to speak) is only going to make the former's position in the market more secure; it will now have a major degree of influence over the world's most popular mobile CPU technology (although it has been stated that Nvidia intends to keep Arm "neutral", so it won't gain any unique advantage, at least to begin with) and that could bode well when it comes to Nintendo's position in the games hardware market over the next decade – assuming it decides to stick with Nvidia's Tegra chips, of course.
The success of Arm will now directly benefit Nvidia, which will only strengthen the company's position in the mobile chipset market. Nvidia is already a world-leader when it comes to GPU technology (an area in which Arm is also involved, via its Mali chipsets), so having closer involvement with Arm's world-beating mobile CPU products could lead to some particularly exciting developments in the realm of portable computing – developments which could potentially shape the future of the Switch brand.
[source theverge.com]
Comments 78
Wow, this means Nvidia gets royalties from close to every mobile SoC-designer on the market...
Plus, this does indicate Nvidia will invest much more in ARM-based chips. Good news for Nintendo, which consoles probably for the coming 10 ears at least, will be ARM-based.
A self aware Nintendo Switch coming in 2028, you read it here first. CAUTION: Left Joycons may drift out of their AI settings, breach the three laws of robotics and kill their user.
For AI driven technology, having both powerful GPU and CPU hardware together will be a boon.
But I worry that for system manufacturers that depend on ARM, Nvidia, or in Nintendo's case, both, that this'll result in an increased cost due to control of essential components.
Kinda doubt it though. systems are already built from hardware supplied from dozens of different manufacturers.
Since Apple is making the best ARM-based chips, it would be very cool if Nintendo and Apple could join forces for the Switch successor. Very unlikely but very cool.
Nvidia are setting themselves up for massive gains. A new shield (or Switch) in partnership with Nintendo exclusives would steal the console market from under Sony and MS. Meanwhile they have top of the chain GPUs in the PC market and now have leverage in the mobile CPU market. Nvidia Now can grow, Incorporating more games than ever before (perhaps even Nintendo games) solidifying the casual streaming business. The future has potential.
@PretendWorking easy least with the GPUs Nvidia has just released, they are 20 Teraflops with raytracing built in. A mobile version could do 1080/60 without a sweat, which is why the 4K rumour is also tangible now. If not natively, then by checkerboard or A.I upscale (which Tegra in Shield already does). Beef up the ARM and the CPU can keep up. The only restrictive is the battery and how much bang you want for the low power draw. 3-4 hours of 1080/60 is looking very achievable.
Yes, Nvidia is the main beneficiary, but also keep in mind that to recoup that $40bn investment they will need ARM to continue running their business for a very long time.
So I wouldn’t expect to see the ‘benefits’ for other businesses for some time.
@Lordplops Way to focus on the trivial. The only thing we all really want to know is whether the Switch T-1000 will be capable of morphing its liquid metal hands into a 4k screen running at 120 fps that we can play BoTW 5, Mario Odyssey 5 and Metroid Prime 4 on before it becomes a knife like blade and ends our lives.
@MrBlacky NO...sorry but no
@StuTwo Metroid Prime 4, in 2028? Don't talk daft. 2032. At the earliest.
@MrBlacky I would indeed love to see a Nintendo Switch based on the best mobile SoC. However, I think that both Apple and Nintendo wouldn't want that. Both have their own ecosystems, which really don't go together.
@hakjie11
What "NO... sorry but no"? Could you be a little bit more precise what you mean? 🤔
@sanderev
Well I said it would be very unlikely, but since Apple and Nintendo don't compete directly with each other, there would be a small chance it could happen theoretically.
This is horrible news for everyone though.
@Pod Why?
@Lordplops "Please understand - the latest reworking of Metroid Prime 4 was not meeting our expectations so we've decided to start again from scratch..."
The Nintendo Switch 2! Powered by A R M.
@TG16_IS_BAE
Well hopefully it won't be a bad thing. But ARM is one of the major providers of cheap power-efficient all-purpose chips, and Nvidia's aggressive market stragies might not mesh well with what people have come to expect from making deals with ARM.
Might not mesh well with their general ideologies of chip design either, but who knows, maybe those difference are part of the reason Nvidia wants them in-house.
@Pod That’s interesting. Had no idea nvidia had aggressive market tactics.
This means the DLSS rumors of it being in the next switch are likely true.
Not sure ARMs customer base will see this as good news. Also interesting to see claims that SoftBank are offsetting other loses in the portfolio, namely WeWork.
@TG16_IS_BAE Nvidia's business model is different from Arm's. Arm designs and patents chips and licenses the patent. Nvidia both manufactures GPU and licenses the manufacturing process to other manufacturers. I think many are afraid that Nvidia will change Arm's business model which could have huge ramifications on the industry.
Wow! ARMS is worth 40 billion, congrats MinMin!
@roboshort Oh? Like what?
@MrBlacky nothing would make me less excited other than a Nintendo / Apple / Disney collaboration. These three companies as much as I love them I have equal hate for their consumer practices. They know they can get away with murder so they push the boundaries.
@sixrings
I don't know what an imaginary cooperation between Apple and Nintendo has to do anything with this. And why bring Disney into all of this? Makes no sense. 🤨
@TG16_IS_BAE
Perhaps I'm just partial against their marketing and branding identity, and I attribute them more of a hard-line business mentality than they deserve.
It could go either way. ARM are traditionally good at working with a wide variety of companies, creating different solutions. Nvidia are more aggressive with their mindset and I’m a bit worried that this will impact the deals ARM have in place with all these other companies.
@MrBlacky you suggested it would be cool if apple worked together on something. my basic reply was the only thing less cool would be the inclusion of Disney in said partnership.
@RupeeClock Given nVidia's history with price fixing and manipulation, I think that's basically a given.
nVidia gaining control of nearly the entire mobile market, overnight, can't be healthy at all.
Do we really think this will clear the competition authorities in all relevant countries without some major caveats? If Nvidia give themselves a competitive edge at the expense of ARM licensees then it's not at all good for the industry - and there are a vast amount of devices that rely on ARM architecture. By either withholding the best chip designs from licensees (who also happen to be direct competitors) so that only Nvidia products use them, or by giving licensees unfavorable terms, it gives Nvidia an unfair advantage. If/when the deal is actually finalised I'd wager the Switch 2 will already be out, and any perceived advantages will take a long time to filter down.
@sixrings
Yeah, I just don't get what consumer practices of any of those companies has to do with this? Any deal between Nintendo and Apple wouldn't change ANYTHING in that regard, but you would a Switch successor with a mich better chip.
@TG16_IS_BAE Arm has maintained a neutral stance just licensing patents to manufacturers but with this deal Nvidia could gain a stranglehold on the mobile cpu market apparently.
I read news in the UK press that the goverment may try and block this sale, we will have to wait and see.
for all we know this could lead to the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 or even the Nintendo Super Switch...(lol)
@mookysam Yep, this attitude of ‘hooray, this is good for Nintendo because they use Tegra’ is utter nonsense. Nvidia do some of the shadiest business on the market and suddenly having a massive majority stake in mobile devices is not a great thing at all. Lord knows why so many people flag wave for big corporations when they absorb more companies into their corporate web.
There's also the inverse possibility to Nintendo. No company wants to be beholden to any particular external company and have their products depend on them entirely, else they get boxed into an unfavorable money hole with them. The Nintendo Play Station comes to mind as one of the quintessential market cases here.
Upon seeing the vendor lock, Nintendo might decide to abandon the Switch idea entirely and go down another "Wii" avenue to something "different" simply to not end up stuck with vendor lock and tied to whatever market pricing that company establishes for them. AMD has PS/XB locked, nVidia is establishing total control on mobile. Nintendo could end up just going with some bespoke console to escape that and get something cheaper to produce.
@Pod Which exact chips does ARM fab?
They don't. They license out designs, and standards. They will continue to do that.
@Yorumi Also as a programmer I'm sick of AI. Remember the moon picture enhancing "AI" of Huawei's phone camera where it actually replaced the moon with a pre-existing image. Then there's the stories of companies saying they have AI when they actually have people doing the work. I did a number of AI modules at uni and next to nothing of it has turned in to a reality 13 years later and most of that is just image analysis.
UK should block this.
Pretty obvious at this point that we can vote for an Imbecile in the States that can muck everything up if stuff based here.
I rather have Technology as global as ARM in control of UK/EU companies than one in the States.
Or give the UK veto export power (and on any future sales) on the tech like the Chinese are doing with TikTok. UK should keep a foot in the company's revolving door.
@Yorumi Epic has Beijing pumping money into them to battle Apple and Google. I doubt Epic will run out of yuan to spend in that fight, officially or no.
Yeah, other companies can design what ARM did, but there's been enough trouble with Qualcomm's open abuse of everything to have a window into what happens when these companies get taken over.
And we all remember nVidia intentionally gimping drivers to make people buy new GPUs. Imagine what they can do with most of the mobile industry under their thumb?
@Agramonte Uhm, nVidia is Taiwanese.....
(Edit: I take that back, they apparently shifted hands and are HQ'd in the US...never even noticed that happened!)
@roboshort Got it, so it could lead to a sort of monopoly?
@Pod Oh man, I wasn’t questioning you! I just didn’t know what you meant because I don’t keep track of it and was hoping to learn something.
@NEStalgia Yeah, I actually had no idea either until I read the piece in The Guardian.
@TG16_IS_BAE Yeah. I think that's what the fear is and it sounds like there is a possibility that the deal will not be approved because of that. I just looked for some news on this and ARM is claiming they will not change their business model. But who really knows.
@roboshort Yeah, they will go where the money goes.
@Yorumi AI has unfortunately been made into a buzzword, but there is a scientific definition to it.
In the textbook AI: A Modern Approach, AI is defined as "the designing and building of intelligent agents that receive percepts from the environment and take actions that affect that environment."
This definition would cover standard control systems and imply that there are different degrees to AI.. and even really simple agents like breadth first search or ant colony optimization would still be kinds of AI.
@StevenG
I suppose so.
@TG16_IS_BAE
Oh it's okay, it's just I started questioning myself.
I'm not at all a fan of Nvidia, but that doesn't mean they can't manage ownership of ARM as well as Softbank could.
@MrBlacky you don't want that. The apple switch will cost $2000, any alterations will cause warranty to void, replacement parts and fixes will be crazy expensive, they'll deny hardware or design flaws and you'll only be able to get games from a closed ecosystem of approved games that they get a royalty from, and the fanboys will deny any of the issues and call you a shill for not drinking their kool aid...
Well... At least it'll be more expensive.
@nessisonett I don't doubt the truth of what you're saying about nvidia's 'shady business practices' (likely in the past) but can I see sources? Most recent evidence suggests that they're willing to undercut themselves on price even when competitors are not producing good products while improving performance for the consumer (3070 v 2080ti debacle)
I am uncomfortable with large companies controlling so much of a market. I'd feel better if they were actually independent from each other.
Apple is migrating all their Macs to ARM chip within 2 years, PC makers will eventually do it as well. Nvidia is doing a pre-emptive strike on the PC market by purchasing ARM. In the future PC will be using Nvidia ARM CPU with Nvidia integrated GPU.
Intel will be out of the picture. They are already slowly dying in the last few years.
Do we really think this will clear the competition authorities in all relevant countries without some major caveats?
@mookysam LOL You're referring to the USA and the BoJo, No-Deal UK. Not a chance they prevent this.
@Yorumi I agree. It's too bad marketers hijacked the word and started abusing it.
@shazbot
Where did I say anything about an Apple Switch? 🙄
But hey, maybe you just imagined it to have a reason for a typical and predictable Apple rant. APPLE IS SOOO BAD, 😢😢😢
@MrBlacky Did you memory hole yourself? Post #5? 🙄
"Since Apple is making the best ARM-based chips, it would be very cool if Nintendo and Apple could join forces for the Switch successor. Very unlikely but very cool."
And since apparently I was too subtle, I was drawing a connection between how Nintendo operates and how Apple operates, except for their hardware pricing strategy.
Here, let me show you:
"The apple switch will cost $2000," - difference in pricing strategy
"any alterations will cause warranty to void" - if you open your switch, you void your warranty
"replacement parts and fixes will be crazy expensive" - joycon replacement is USD90, or requires no joycons until they return them
"they'll deny hardware or design flaws" - joycons were not admitted as FUBAR until recently
"and you'll only be able to get games from a closed ecosystem of approved games that they get a royalty from" - Nintendo eShop
"and the fanboys will deny any of the issues and call you a shill for not drinking their kool aid..." - the shut up and deal with [insert Switch issue here]
But now that it's explained, it's ruined. Thanks. Foolish me for thinking subtlety could exist on the Internet.
@shazbot
WHAT HAS THIS TO DO WITH APPLE BEING THE SUPPLIER FOR THE CHIP?! Since when did the chip supplier had ANY influence on business practice?
@MrBlacky I don't understand why you're taking this so contentiously. It was initially a riff about how similar their business models and fanboys are. No need to get your blood pressure up. I'm neither snippy nor argumentative.
Another European company about to be placed under direct control of the no. 1 spyware developers in the world (i.e. the US), but yeah, sure, it's good for Nintendo, hurray...
@Yorumi Apple use Rosetta 2 to run old Intel apps. The original Rosetta was used to run PowerPC apps when they switched to Intel in 2006.
Devs had tested Rosetta 2 and said it runs emulated x86 apps faster than MS Surface Pro X running native ARM apps - and that's with the old A12Z chip used in iPad Pro. With the new A14 chip, people won't even noticed the difference between emulated and native. MS will create something similar, if they are going for a full migration to ARM. It's going to happen sooner or later, with Nvidia's ARM chip surpassing Intel chip's performance in the future. When people see the Macbook Pro having a 20hrs battery, they will demand it and PC maker will use Nvidia's ARM chip, and MS will make a greater commitment to ARM.
Just don't tell Microsoft 🤫
Oho, SoftBank would consider selling ARM to the public?
That's interesting news. I'll first in line (as first as I can get away with) if an IPO does show up. :v
@StuTwo Metroid Prime 4. I see what you did there. 😛
(And I like the liquid metal bits too. 9/10 comment.)
@Pod Most of the stock in the IPO is probably going to go to major players (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, etc), and other big tech investors/VCs first, before any trickles down to the actual public on the street.
This won't make any difference to Nintendo. Nvidia's plans for the next Tegra SoCs already included existing Arm CPU designs. And the benefit to Nvidia getting Arm would have been around high performance computing for big businesses and academia anyway, with little impact on mobile.
@TSR3 I think mobile would still have been pretty big for them, because of the smartphone market and ARM-based laptops.
I don't think it will impact Nintendo all that much. If I were to speculate on the worst cast scenario: perhaps the deal could have allowed Nintendo to work out a deal with NVidia to subsidise costs on a much more powerful Switch 2, but now instead they may have to opt for something a little weaker?
I also wouldn’t have done it.. just ‘cuz..
@yuwarite Yes, mobile is also a massive market that Nvidia have found little success in, excepting Nintendo's Switch of course. Nvidia were very clear they weren't going to force the rest of the mobile industry to buy Tegra instead of just Arm (but I'm sure they would if they thought they could get away with it!)
I'd never thought of Nintendo getting a subsidy from Nvidia beyond a volume discount. Interesting idea, but I would expect the power of any 'Switch 2' to be most dependant on what model of Tegra will be current at the time that Nintendo want to produce a new model.
Nvidia is now considering buying LEG chips.
Intel has lots of leg chips for sale.
I wonder if the Activision deal will get blocked too.
That's why Phil is suddenly promising CoD to everyone...
@TSR3
You're right, but ARM's a legend for many good reasons, and it seems like a pretty safe place to put some money.
@GamerDad66 I think that statement is more about MS not wanting to make enemies with anyone just yet. Minecraft is continuously available on all platforms too, and that seems to serve them well. :v
This deal falling through is probably for the best for Nintendo. Nvidia can keep their focus on them as their major consumer market customer for CPU/SoC
I didn’t notice Tencent Tim cheerleading and failed acquisition before, what a disgusting snake glad to see this got crushed.
Microsoft with its 68b Actiblizz buyout:
All these comments from two years ago...
Just make a new article.
I mean, you guys make multiple articles for everything else!
Aight. Gonna buy sum of dat.
@RupeeClock Not to mention, AI is the future of GPU rendering anyways, look at all the super sampling or down sampling AI solutions nvidia and AMD have. In about 10 years my guess is GPU will be geared towards AI which can do much more with much less power than a traditional GPU.
@Jokerwolf
There's a ton of potential with AI processing, with regards to compensating for processing power deficits in other areas to feign better resolution or frame-rates.
But there's much more work to be done, current machine learning methods have some very janky results.
@RupeeClock Oh I agree, but machine learning is quite fast now and we will see lots of progress to come in the next decade.
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