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Rumor: NVIDIA is interested in purchasing ARM (updated)
Nvidia is said to be interested in obtaining chip designer Arm. That is what sources involved in this say to financial news agency Bloomberg. Last week it was revealed that SoftBank, the current owner of Arm, would be considering a sale.
Nvidia has, according to Bloomberg sources, approached Arm in recent weeks about a possible acquisition. According to the sources, other bidders could emerge, but details are not yet known. Four years ago ARM was acquired by Softbank for a sum of 29 billion euros, and since then the value raised. Nvidia may have the means to acquire ARM after having recently been listed higher than Intel, but whether Nvidia's interest will eventually lead to a deal with SoftBank remains to be seen. Should it come to this, it would be the largest takeover in the history of the chip industry. A takeover of Arm will be watched by numerous authorities as many companies depend on its technology. An acquisition of Arm by Nvidia will mean a shift in the market and increase Nvidia's chances of growing in different markets.
Updated: Bloomberg now reports that NVIDIA is in advanced talks:
-- Bloomberg --
Nvidia Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire Arm Ltd., the chip designer that SoftBank Group Corp. bought for $32 billion four years ago, according to people familiar with the matter.
The two parties aim to reach a deal in the next few weeks, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Nvidia is the only suitor in concrete discussions with SoftBank, according to the people.
A deal for Arm could be the largest ever in the semiconductor industry, which has been consolidating in recent years as companies seek to diversify and add scale. Cambridge, England-based Arm’s technology underpins chips in products including Apple Inc. devices and connected appliances.
No final decisions have been made, and the negotiations could drag on longer or fall apart, the people said. SoftBank may gauge interest from other suitors if it can’t reach an agreement with Nvidia, the people said. Representatives for Nvidia, SoftBank and Arm declined to comment.
Any deal with Nvidia, which is a customer of Arm, would likely trigger regulatory scrutiny as well as a wave of opposition from other users of the company’s technology. Other Arm clients could demand assurances that a new owner would continue providing equal access to Arm’s instruction set. Such concerns resulted in SoftBank, a neutral company, buying Arm the last time it was for sale.
A deal for Arm could become the biggest-ever acquisition in the chip industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Arm is owned by SoftBank and its $100 billion Vision Fund. The Japanese group bought Arm, which at the time was the U.K.’s largest listed technology company, for about $32 billion in 2016.
Rumor: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and 3080 Coming Q3 2020 + Specs - 04/29/2020 02:25 PM
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Rumor: NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3000 video cards launch delayed to September - 03/30/2020 09:02 AM
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Rumor: NVIDIA GeForce Ampere to be fabbed at 10nm, all cards RTX ? - 03/12/2020 05:42 PM
We'll probably go back and forth a bit when it comes to the topic of Ampere until NVIDIA lifts all mystery, expected was that NVIDIA's upcoming GPUs would be fabbed at 7nm. However, that fabrication...
Rumor: NVIDIA Ampere GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 specs surface - 01/20/2020 01:04 PM
It has been a crazy year, lots of leaks and info mostly coming through unknown Twitter accounts. Today we can add to that as alleged specifications of the GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 have surfaced....
Stefem
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Posts: 50
Joined: 2016-07-19
#5816851 Posted on: 08/11/2020 01:25 AM
Most of the Supercomputers already have HUGE InfiniBand switches.. Supercomputers are not one huge MB where you can plug in more and more GPU's.. connecting nodes is, or being able to replace 'legacy nodes' is where compatibility is important.. and where the big bucks are.
*on second thoughts.., if you're asking "why not use NVlink to connect nodes" then I doubt NVlink can sustain its speed over a 3-5M cable, but maybe it can/will now Nvidia own Infiniband. Also Infiniband transmits much more than just GPU traffic.. again maybe even more now Nvidia own the IP.
No, I'm asking why they would integrate InfiniBand in their GPUs since it's designed to connect nodes and not chips while they have NVLink which is designed for chip to chip communication, GPUs can already directly talk to InfiniBand NICs.
NVIDIA is pursuing disaggregation (which isn't an easy task but it's good for customer) while competitors are aggressively pushing for integration (which is mostly only good for companies).
To be fair Nvidia didn't play nice with the GPU in the Original xBox and when Sony came begging for a GPU for the PS3 after their internal development didn't turn out..
AMD got kudo's for delivering what 'price-conscious' customers wanted... but who can blame Nvidia asking to be paid for the crazy money they spent, creating and pushing the GPU world forward?
Rumour has it nvidia wanted a win in the console world no matter what the cost.. so that's why we have been gifted a great console in the form of the 'switch'
These are all rumors, some of which don't make much sense but would be nice to have something concrete to talk about, we have something about current gen consoles as statement from both AMD and NVIDIA seems to coincide somehow.
Most of the Supercomputers already have HUGE InfiniBand switches.. Supercomputers are not one huge MB where you can plug in more and more GPU's.. connecting nodes is, or being able to replace 'legacy nodes' is where compatibility is important.. and where the big bucks are.
*on second thoughts.., if you're asking "why not use NVlink to connect nodes" then I doubt NVlink can sustain its speed over a 3-5M cable, but maybe it can/will now Nvidia own Infiniband. Also Infiniband transmits much more than just GPU traffic.. again maybe even more now Nvidia own the IP.
No, I'm asking why they would integrate InfiniBand in their GPUs since it's designed to connect nodes and not chips while they have NVLink which is designed for chip to chip communication, GPUs can already directly talk to InfiniBand NICs.
NVIDIA is pursuing disaggregation (which isn't an easy task but it's good for customer) while competitors are aggressively pushing for integration (which is mostly only good for companies).
To be fair Nvidia didn't play nice with the GPU in the Original xBox and when Sony came begging for a GPU for the PS3 after their internal development didn't turn out..
AMD got kudo's for delivering what 'price-conscious' customers wanted... but who can blame Nvidia asking to be paid for the crazy money they spent, creating and pushing the GPU world forward?
Rumour has it nvidia wanted a win in the console world no matter what the cost.. so that's why we have been gifted a great console in the form of the 'switch'
These are all rumors, some of which don't make much sense but would be nice to have something concrete to talk about, we have something about current gen consoles as statement from both AMD and NVIDIA seems to coincide somehow.
Astyanax
Senior Member
Posts: 15350
Joined: 2018-03-21
Senior Member
Posts: 15350
Joined: 2018-03-21
#5816884 Posted on: 08/11/2020 06:04 AM
Microsoft attempted to reneg the contracted price they paid for the gpu's and nvidia beat them in court over it.
Microsoft attempted to reneg the contracted price they paid for the gpu's and nvidia beat them in court over it.
Stefem
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Posts: 50
Joined: 2016-07-19
Member
Posts: 50
Joined: 2016-07-19
#5817322 Posted on: 08/12/2020 04:10 PM
ARM isn't open source, RISC-V is. ARM going under Nvidia's control is like to be more tightly controlled than ARM simply licensing it to everyone, and that probably still will be less than RISC-V ISA's being available as open source. Thus, ARM being under tight control will probably stifle innovation using this tech.
Looking at Nvidia's business tactics, they are aggressive in trying to control and manage their market, and make it difficult for contenders to enter with a variety of proprietary layers and cost barriers. I imagine they would do the same with ARM, particularly as one of Softbank's rumoured reasons for selling may be related to profit from ARM - estimated 1.9 Billion USD last financial year up from 1.2 Billion in 2016, while Nvidia have tripled theirs in the same time frame.
Not sure what AMD has to do with your or this argument.
Be more specific please, what do you mean by "a variety of proprietary layers" and how did they supposedly make difficult for contenders to enter the market? What do you mean by "cost barriers", pushing tech forward as much as they can?
NVIDIA revenue arose so much because they created new market out of nowhere, Workstation/HPC accelerators and AI accelerators, ARM exploded with the introduction of smartphones and other kind of new high performance devices, later they aimed at the IoT market which (at least yet) never really took off.
AMD is their only competitor in the GPU sector and, since you claimed they "would kill a lot of the innovation and creativity", I pointed out that NVIDIA is the leader in both performance and functionality as they never stopped innovating even when the competition lacked (something they always done, it's one of the company motto, "compete with yourself or die") they have done the same in the mobile (before being pushed out) and autonomous robot/vehicle processor sector.
ARM isn't open source, RISC-V is. ARM going under Nvidia's control is like to be more tightly controlled than ARM simply licensing it to everyone, and that probably still will be less than RISC-V ISA's being available as open source. Thus, ARM being under tight control will probably stifle innovation using this tech.
Looking at Nvidia's business tactics, they are aggressive in trying to control and manage their market, and make it difficult for contenders to enter with a variety of proprietary layers and cost barriers. I imagine they would do the same with ARM, particularly as one of Softbank's rumoured reasons for selling may be related to profit from ARM - estimated 1.9 Billion USD last financial year up from 1.2 Billion in 2016, while Nvidia have tripled theirs in the same time frame.
Not sure what AMD has to do with your or this argument.
Be more specific please, what do you mean by "a variety of proprietary layers" and how did they supposedly make difficult for contenders to enter the market? What do you mean by "cost barriers", pushing tech forward as much as they can?
NVIDIA revenue arose so much because they created new market out of nowhere, Workstation/HPC accelerators and AI accelerators, ARM exploded with the introduction of smartphones and other kind of new high performance devices, later they aimed at the IoT market which (at least yet) never really took off.
AMD is their only competitor in the GPU sector and, since you claimed they "would kill a lot of the innovation and creativity", I pointed out that NVIDIA is the leader in both performance and functionality as they never stopped innovating even when the competition lacked (something they always done, it's one of the company motto, "compete with yourself or die") they have done the same in the mobile (before being pushed out) and autonomous robot/vehicle processor sector.
Stefem
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Posts: 50
Joined: 2016-07-19
Member
Posts: 50
Joined: 2016-07-19
#5817346 Posted on: 08/12/2020 05:37 PM
Yea but how is that not playing nice? they entered arbitration because Microsoft wanted to renegotiate the contract they both signed, if Microsoft made a mistake or changed their mind why should we consider NVIDIA bad for not wanting to renegotiate the clauses they both agreed on? I mean it's not that Microsoft was groping to stay afloat, they just wanted to improve their margin
Microsoft attempted to reneg the contracted price they paid for the gpu's and nvidia beat them in court over it.
Yea but how is that not playing nice? they entered arbitration because Microsoft wanted to renegotiate the contract they both signed, if Microsoft made a mistake or changed their mind why should we consider NVIDIA bad for not wanting to renegotiate the clauses they both agreed on? I mean it's not that Microsoft was groping to stay afloat, they just wanted to improve their margin
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well it's not surprising to me that Nvidia would want to but ARM, but it's almost inconceivable that they'd be able to outbid Apple or Qualcomm.
no one has more cash on hand than Apple (even though some of it is parked in Eire), no one is more reliant (now) on ARM design given their stated ditching of Intel. Qualcomm is a distant #2, but has lots of other people's money from legal fees and a willingness to go to court that's way above the litigious standard of the tech industries.