News Nvidia Close To Buying ARM for $40 Billion: Report

[Admin]

The Wall Street Journal reports that Nvidia is close to finalizing a deal to buy ARM from SoftBank for roughly $40 billion.

Nvidia Close To Buying ARM for $40 Billion: Report : Read more

 

[Chung Leong]

The beginning of the end for Adreno? Nvidia can bring a lot to bear in the mobile GPU space.

 

[digitalgriffin]

The Wall Street Journal reports that Nvidia is close to finalizing a deal to buy ARM from SoftBank for roughly $40 billion.

Nvidia Close To Buying ARM for $40 Billion: Report : Read more

God I hope U.S. gov't steps in and files an anti trust suit. Nvidia has shown time and time again what a bunch of <Mod Edit> they can be towards consumers and other companies. They have always been anti competitive.

 

[InvalidError]

Nvidia can bring a lot to bear in the mobile GPU space.

If that was the only thing Nvidia wanted, it could already do it by tacking its own GPU to ARM CPUs like it did for the Tegra SoCs. No need to spend a fortune on ARM there, license the CPU either as an IP-core or HDL and go from there.

 

[spongiemaster]

Nvidia has shown time and time again what a bunch of <Mod Edit> they can be towards consumers and other companies. They have always been anti competitive.

Name a tech company that can afford ARM that this description doesn't fit.

 

[Chung Leong]

If that was the only thing Nvidia wanted, it could already do it by tacking its own GPU to ARM CPUs like it did for the Tegra SoCs. No need to spend a fortune on ARM there, license the CPU either as an IP-core or HDL and go from there.

ARM is valuable mainly because of its market position. Its mobile GPU isn't as dominant as its CPU designs, but it's still widely licensed. Nvidia is pretty strong on the software side. It can really help Mali expand its market share. DLSS, for instance, is even more useful on mobile devices than on desktops.

 

[InvalidError]

It can really help Mali expand its market share.

It would make more sense to divest from Mali and use use the resources it would otherwise have to spend on maintaining Mali's development on adapting Ampere to mobile, automotive and all the other SoC/embedded stuff Nvidia wants to get into.

 

[nofanneeded]

Looks like Nvidia wants to compete against AMD in the console market thats why they are buying ARM ...

 

[animekenji]

Apple snubbed NVidia cards in Macs, now NVidia can snub Apple for ARM CPU's in iPhones.

 

[Jim90]

God I hope U.S. gov't steps in and files an anti trust suit. Nvidia has shown time and time again what a bunch of <Mod Edit> they can be towards consumers and other companies. They have always been anti competitive.

Name a tech company that can afford ARM that this description doesn't fit.

...being able to "afford ARM" has no bearing on the fact that " Nvidia has shown time and time again what a bunch of <Mod Edit> they can be towards consumers and other companies. "

 

[sizzling]

...being able to "afford ARM" has no bearing on the fact that " Nvidia has shown time and time again what a bunch of <Mod Edit> they can be towards consumers and other companies. "

I’m not defending NVidia but you can dig up shady decisions on pretty much any global company. NVidia would probably look well behaved against many. NVidia’s is playing the game. At the end of the day these companies have a legal obligation to their shareholders and like it or not the game is stacked in the favour of the shareholders and not the customer.

 

[digitalgriffin]

I’m not defending NVidia but you can dig up shady decisions on pretty much any global company. NVidia would probably look well behaved against many. NVidia’s is playing the game. At the end of the day these companies have a legal obligation to their shareholders and like it or not the game is stacked in the favour of the shareholders and not the customer.

You do remember all the MX motherboard chipsets that were defective?

What about all the chips that were coming off the pads on the laptops due to a bad soldering choice listed in their official specs?

Did NVIDIA step up and offer to rectify the issue? Nope. They gave everyone the middle finger. "Not our problem."

What about the 970 Memory issue (not all high bandwidth)

What about the fact PhysX was limited to 1 CPU core even though it didn't need to be?

What about the lawsuit NVIDIA put into place to disable API's that allow other GPU's to compatible with their APIs?

What about NVIDIA intentionally pushing game developers to use more geometry just to make AMD look bad?

What about the fact they intentionally push prices higher and higher for entry level for small improvements when there is only small or even reduced performance?

What about the now detailed and leaked plans how they are going to intentionally create a shortage of the 30 series to drive prices up and hype?

 

[Chung Leong]

It would make more sense to divest from Mali and use use the resources it would otherwise have to spend on maintaining Mali's development on adapting Ampere to mobile, automotive and all the other SoC/embedded stuff Nvidia wants to get into.

I'm not convinced a single architecture can easily span from 350W down to 3.5W. Whatever cost saving isn't worth the hit to workplace morale. Using people's babies on the cutting block is a rather shabby way of welcoming new employees to your organization.

 

[spongiemaster]

...being able to "afford ARM" has no bearing on the fact that " Nvidia has shown time and time again what a bunch of <Mod Edit> they can be towards consumers and other companies. "

You're missing the point. It looks like Softbank has decided they want to sell ARM. If the Nvidia deal doesn't go through, some other company will step in. Would Apple being a better option than Nvidia? IMO, Apple would be worse. Any company that ends up buying ARM is going have a checkered past since any company large enough to buy ARM is going to be a stockholders first, consumers 2nd entity. Nvidia doesn't have a stellar track record, but in the evil corporations rankings, it isn't that close to the top either.

 

[InvalidError]

I'm not convinced a single architecture can easily span from 350W down to 3.5W.

You may want to review Nvidia's Tegra history. Nvidia has been scaling its GPU architectures down to sub-10W for nearly a whole decade already with the next generation using Turing.

If Nvidia decides to "keep" Mali, it'll most likely absorb key talent and patents into its own GPU projects over the next year or two as it sheds the rest to streamline redundancies... unless it acquires ARM as a wholly owned independent subsidiary, which would limit Nvidia's benefits to little more than paying royalties to itself.

 

[Chung Leong]

You may want to review Nvidia's Tegra history. Nvidia has been scaling its GPU architectures down to sub-10W for nearly a whole decade already with the next generation using Turing.

Which would reveal that the chip failed utterly in the mobile phone market. The platform has been repositioned for automotive use and edge computing.

 

[digitalgriffin]

You may want to review Nvidia's Tegra history. Nvidia has been scaling its GPU architectures down to sub-10W for nearly a whole decade already with the next generation using Turing.

If Nvidia decides to "keep" Mali, it'll most likely absorb key talent and patents into its own GPU projects over the next year or two as it sheds the rest to streamline redundancies... unless it acquires ARM as a wholly owned independent subsidiary, which would limit Nvidia's benefits to little more than paying royalties to itself.

Both of you have valid points. Look at what happened at Nokia though when windows took over and killed their OS. A lot of programmers at Nokia were justifiably upset.

Redundant systems/product lines are often killed off. IBM/Microsoft/Intel are all guilty. It's normal for the industry.

That said given the available alternatives, ARM has no alternatives and everyone in the mobile space is dependent upon them. For this reason they need protected.

I look at it akin like what facebook is doing to Occulus owners right now. "We bought it, we're rescending our agreement if you like it or not despite our promises. So F U!"

How long before nvidia becomes anti competitive?

Given their past behavior and jensen's small weiner syndrome it won't be long before NVIDIA does something similar.

Given the number of companies that depend on ARM licensing, ARM should be considered a special protected entity.

 

[Shadowclash10]

You do remember all the MX motherboard chipsets that were defective?

What about all the chips that were coming off the pads on the laptops due to a bad soldering choice listed in their official specs?

Did NVIDIA step up and offer to rectify the issue? Nope. They gave everyone the middle finger. "Not our problem."

What about the 970 Memory issue (not all high bandwidth)

What about the fact PhysX was limited to 1 CPU core even though it didn't need to be?

What about the lawsuit NVIDIA put into place to disable API's that allow other GPU's to compatible with their APIs?

What about NVIDIA intentionally pushing game developers to use more geometry just to make AMD look bad?

What about the fact they intentionally push prices higher and higher for entry level for small improvements when there is only small or even reduced performance?

What about the now detailed and leaked plans how they are going to intentionally create a shortage of the 30 series to drive prices up and hype?

That's all true. I think the point is that all big tech companies do the same things, and Nvidia isn't the worst choice out of them.