NVIDIA Acquisition of Arm Collapses, UK Company to Seek IPO

[AleksandarK]

NVIDIA's long-awaited acquisition of Arm Ltd. is collapsing, confirm Financial Times and Reuters. According to the latest information, the deal is not happening, and the previously agreed terms are no longer valid. As we now know, NVIDIA will have to pay Softbank (Arm's owner) a break-up fee of $1.25 billion, which was the deal that the two settled on if the acquisition fails. NVIDIA has originally planned to purchase Arm for $40 billion. However, the regulators from UK and EU have been blocking the deal from happening on the terms that it would hurt competition and block innovation.

What is next for Arm Ltd. is to go public and list itself on one of the world's biggest stock exchanges, either domestically or overseas in the US. The IPO efforts of Arm are estimated to be worth around $80 billion, representing a double amount of what NVIDIA wanted to purchase the company for.

Update 08:35 UTC: Here is the official press release from NVIDIA and Softbank below:

NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) and SoftBank Group Corp. ("SBG" or "SoftBank") today announced the termination of the previously announced transaction whereby NVIDIA would acquire Arm Limited ("Arm") from SBG. The parties agreed to terminate the Agreement because of significant regulatory challenges preventing the consummation of the transaction, despite good faith efforts by the parties. Arm will now start preparations for a public offering.

"Arm has a bright future, and we'll continue to support them as a proud licensee for decades to come," said Jensen Huang, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NVIDIA. "Arm is at the center of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won't be one company, we will partner closely with Arm. The significant investments that Masa has made have positioned Arm to expand the reach of the Arm CPU beyond client computing to supercomputing, cloud, AI and robotics. I expect Arm to be the most important CPU architecture of the next decade."

SBG today also announced that, in coordination with Arm, it will start preparations for a public offering of Arm within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. SBG believes Arm's technology and intellectual property will continue to be at the center of mobile computing and the development of artificial intelligence.

"Arm is becoming a center of innovation not only in the mobile phone revolution, but also in cloud computing, automotive, the Internet of Things and the metaverse, and has entered its second growth phase," said Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group Corp. "We will take this opportunity and start preparing to take Arm public, and to make even further progress."

Mr. Son continued, "I want to thank Jensen and his talented team at NVIDIA for trying to bring together these two great companies and wish them all the success."

NVIDIA and SBG had announced that they had entered into a definitive agreement, under which NVIDIA would acquire Arm from SoftBank, on September 13, 2020. In accordance with the terms of the agreement, SBG* will retain the $1.25 billion prepaid by NVIDIA, which will be recorded as profit in the fourth quarter, and NVIDIA will retain its 20-year Arm license.

* 24.99% of Arm shares are attributable to SoftBank Vision Fund 1.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Space Lynx]

I don't own any ARM products and have no need for them, so I could care less honestly, good luck to them.

 

[Jism]

I don't own any ARM products and have no need for them, so I could care less honestly, good luck to them.

Your phone says hi. So does your router.

 

[Space Lynx]

Your phone says hi. So does your router.

my phone has intel atom inside to my knowledge, but im not 100% sure on that its been awhile, i havent upgraded my main phone in many years. i had a samsung exynos galaxy type phone for awhile, not sure if that is ARM or not? i no longer use it so eh i dunno

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

Your phone says hi. So does your router.

And even if they somehow didn't have either personally, tons of routers forming outside internet structure say hi anyways.
Their comment indeed was quite shortsighted.

 

[Space Lynx]

And even if they somehow didn't have either personally, tons of routers forming outside internet structure say hi anyways.
Their comment indeed was quite short-sighted.

maybe if it wasn't ARM routers wouldn't be used as botnet brute force hubs for DDOS attacks. maybe if some proper cpu's were in them DDOS attacks would not happen at all, who knows

 

[R0H1T]

So you're saying x86 CPU's aren't used as botnet

 

[Vayra86]

maybe if it wasn't ARM routers wouldn't be used as botnet brute force hubs for DDOS attacks. maybe if some proper cpu's were in them DDOS attacks would not happen at all, who knows

Man sometimes the amount of nonsense you come up with knows no bounds The above is totally random.

Koko's definitely smarter than this...

 

[Jism]

maybe if it wasn't ARM routers wouldn't be used as botnet brute force hubs for DDOS attacks. maybe if some proper cpu's were in them DDOS attacks would not happen at all, who knows

Thats, due to outdated software that gets injected remotely, and takes part into a botnet. Ive hacked back botnets myself, and i changed for example their SSID with "YOUR ROUTER IS HACKED, UPDATE PLEASE!"

 

[watzupken]

my phone has intel atom inside to my knowledge, but im not 100% sure on that its been awhile, i havent upgraded my main phone in many years. i had a samsung exynos galaxy type phone for awhile, not sure if that is ARM or not? i no longer use it so eh i dunno

ARM technology is found in many things that you may not even expect. As long as an electronics have some sort of SOC/ processing unit, chances it that it comes from ARM. Samsung is a licensee of ARM SOCs and even with their "custom cores", it is also ARM technology with some customisation. Your smart TV if you have one may also have an ARM based SOC. Most routers uses some ARM cores under the brand of say Broadcom.

In any case, I feel this article is quite confusing. The header says" Nvidia acquisition of ARM collapses", but the body of the article says "collapsing". The former means it already collapsed/ failed, while the latter suggests that it is failing, but not conclusive.

 

[sam_86314]

Your phone says hi. So does your router.

Hell, apparently even my old GTX 1070 has an ARM processor on it that handles the RGB lighting.

That's not even getting into any old handheld game consoles (The GBA, all variants of the DS, and the PS Vita, for example, are all ARM-based) or smart TVs he might have.

 

[watzupken]

maybe if it wasn't ARM routers wouldn't be used as botnet brute force hubs for DDOS attacks. maybe if some proper cpu's were in them DDOS attacks would not happen at all, who knows

Objectively, there is no hardware that offers 0 vulnerability, same goes for the fact that nothing man made is perfect (imperfect man can never make anything perfect). When a processor is very popular, they will naturally attract people to try and "crack" it so that they can benefit themselves. Assuming there is no ARM chip, I am confident that whatever processor used is not going to be safe either. It is just a matter of time when people will figure out the chink in the armour, no matter what security technology the chip maker implements.

 

[Space Lynx]

Man sometimes the amount of nonsense you come up with knows no bounds The above is totally random.

Koko's definitely smarter than this...

she is, she would have realized we shouldn't use chips at all, instead should embraced the forest

 

[Prima.Vera]

The funny thing is that those regulators said and did nothing when SoftBank purchased ARM a couple of years ago. Hypocrisy at its finest.

 

[R0H1T]

ARM wasn't considered as "essential" back then, the biggest issue is that the likes of Apple/Sammy/QC/MediaTek & most importantly China don't want to be held hostage to Nvidia & that's a real possibility with their past record. The only way Nvidia could've sneaked this through is if all the regulators around the globe were asleep at the same time, kinda like the 2008 crisis

 

[silentbogo]

NVIDIA will have to pay Softbank (Arm's owner) a break-up fee of $1.25 billion, which was the deal that the two settled on if the acquisition fails.

With Softbank's track record I wouldn't be surprised if it was their plan all along....

 

[Assimilator]

The funny thing is that those regulators said and did nothing when SoftBank purchased ARM a couple of years ago. Hypocrisy at its finest.

Uh, yeah... SoftBank wasn't and isn't a giant in the computing world so there was no issue with lack of competition... the fact that you need this explained to you says much...

 

[DrCR]

How is taking the company public achieve their objectives? Wouldn’t that give up practical control of the company to the highest bidder?

 

[ChosenName]

ARM wasn't considered as "essential" back then, the biggest issue is that the likes of Apple/Sammy/QC/MediaTek & most importantly China don't want to be held hostage to Nvidia & that's a real possibility with their past record. The only way Nvidia could've sneaked this through is if all the regulators around the globe were asleep at the same time, kinda like the 2008 crisis

There's probably an element of "the rest of the world" not wanting to be held hostage by US foreign policy either.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I don't own any ARM products and have no need for them, so I could care less honestly, good luck to them.

Do you own a car? Do you own a set-top-box/streaming media player? Do you own a router?
Seriously, almost anything and everything around you that needs some kind of processing, has an ARM based chip in them.
So yes, you most likely own a lot more ARM based products than you think.

maybe if it wasn't ARM routers wouldn't be used as botnet brute force hubs for DDOS attacks. maybe if some proper cpu's were in them DDOS attacks would not happen at all, who knows

That's the dumbest statement yet from you in this thread.

The fact that routers can be compromised is largely related to the software running on them and it being outdated, poorly configured or even in some cases, having hard coded passwords by the manufacturer. It has nothing to do with the processor inside them. A lot of lower-end routers actually use MIPS based processors, although this is quickly declining.

 

[R0H1T]

There's probably an element of "the rest of the world" not wanting to be held hostage by US foreign policy either.

Yes but really the only other nation that could realistically block the deal was China, UK would've followed in US' footsteps if the deal was cleared though since the FTC sued that never came to pass.

 

[TheLostSwede]

How is taking the company public achieve their objectives? Wouldn’t that give up practical control of the company to the highest bidder?

How so? Just because you go public doesn't mean that you have to put all the shares of a company on the market.
As long as SoftBank retains 51% of the voting shares, they're in control.
I presume you've never owned a business?

 

[Space Lynx]

Do you own a car? Do you own a set-top-box/streaming media player? Do you own a router?
Seriously, almost anything and everything around you that needs some kind of processing, has an ARM based chip in them.
So yes, you most likely own a lot more ARM based products than you think.


That's the dumbest statement yet from you in this thread.

The fact that routers can be compromised is largely related to the software running on them and it being outdated, poorly configured or even in some cases, having hard coded passwords by the manufacturer. It has nothing to do with the processor inside them. A lot of lower-end routers actually use MIPS based processors, although this is quickly declining.

I had no idea Arm was such a monopoly, wow. I am surprised governments haven't stepped in yet to break into separate companies, I am sure they will eventually since it doesn't seem to have a single competitor unlike other rivalries Apple vs M$ and Nvidia vs AMD vs Intel, etc

Pretty sure they will be breaking up social media soon, seems to be the rhetoric, so I would not be surprised if ARM is on that list next

 

[TheLostSwede]

I had no idea Arm was such a monopoly, wow. I am surprised governments haven't stepped in yet to break into separate companies, I am sure they will eventually since it doesn't seem to have a single competitor unlike other rivalries Apple vs M$ and Nvidia vs AMD vs Intel, etc

Pretty sure they will be breaking up social media soon, seems to be the rhetoric, so I would not be surprised if ARM is on that list next

Ok, sorry, but you clearly don't understand what they do.
Arm licenses IP, they don't make any products. As such, a company that wants to make a processor of some kind, goes to Arm, pays them a license fee and then design a chip based around their processor IP. The fact that there's a common processor IP for these low-power chips, means that it's in general easier for these companies to offer software for their chips, since they can use commonly used bits of Linux, Android or some RTOS for their products, instead of having to reinvent the wheel on their own.
There are plenty of competitors in the MCU space, such as MIPS, Arc, RISC-V (more recent addition), good old Intel 8051 and various other more or less proprietary solutions like STM8/10/32, various PIC16/18/24/33 chips and so on.
However, once you move up to chips that need to be able to run a full-on OS, you have much more limited options, especially as MIPS is dying a slow death, PowerPC is mostly dead outside of the server space and many other CPU architectures that have died a slow death over the past 20 years or so. Arm has offered a solution that has gained popularity in just about every market niche, because they're considered reliable and cost effective to work with, but this isn't something Arm has done on its own, but it's rather something its partners have chosen to do.
Apple's own CPUs are based on the Arm architecture, but has grown into its own branch that isn't nearly as compatible as some other chips based on Arm's IP out there.

There is nothing to break up, since as explained, Arm is not a monopoly, since anyone can license their technology and use it in their chips. Well, maybe not North Korean and Iran, but hey...

 

[Space Lynx]

I think I get it now, thanks for the explanation, much appreciated. You are correct, I really didn't know as much as I thought I did.

So if ARM licensed say... IP to make a chip to put on say the RGB of a gtx 1070, and this chip was made in China, how do we know that telemetry of some kind is not built in to that RGB arm chip on the gtx 1070? Just curious... a hypothetical scenario... if you will... I only ask because I remember reading something like this once:

China Used a Tiny Chip in a Hack That Infiltrated U.S. Companies

The attack by Chinese spies reached almost 30 U.S. companies by compromising America's technology supply chain.

www.bloomberg.com

full disclose i only read like the first paragraph there, but yeah