Arm is Developing Its Own Advanced Chip

[erek]

Interesting ARM v RISC-V v x86 race, love it

"The article cites "people briefed on the move" as saying that Arm plans to build prototype chips for laptops, mobile devices, and other electronics. "The team will also expand on Arm's existing efforts to enhance the performance and security of designs, as well as bolster developer access to its products. "

The article points out that the head of Arm's engineering team previously oversaw the development of Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip."

Source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/04/23/192217/arm-is-developing-its-own-advanced-chip

 

[erek]

Interesting ARM v RISC-V v x86 race, love it

"The article cites "people briefed on the move" as saying that Arm plans to build prototype chips for laptops, mobile devices, and other electronics. "The team will also expand on Arm's existing efforts to enhance the performance and security of designs, as well as bolster developer access to its products. "

The article points out that the head of Arm's engineering team previously oversaw the development of Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip."

Source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/04/23/192217/arm-is-developing-its-own-advanced-chip

An alternative interpretation:
https://www.engadget.com/arm-is-rep...ow-off-what-its-designs-can-do-193232317.html

 

[Lakados]

Well, they have to, they have modified their contract wording so that when Qualcomm, Broadcom, MediaTek, Samsung, and all the others go to renew their licenses for ARM they will no longer be allowed to modify the designs, ARM has taken a take it or leave it approach to their licensing so no more 3'rd parties modifying the designs. ARM has to get that shit all in place before those contracts come up for renewal otherwise they are dead in the water, or they have to renew under the old terms which will bankrupt them.

 

[Red Falcon]

If ARM fails it won't be because of the ISA, it will be because of SoftBank's bumbling tactics.
That corporation has been hemorrhaging money for years, and ARM should have been sold to NVIDIA who would have at least been a proper driving force of the technology.

 

[Lakados]

ARM's "partners" Qualcomm, Broadcom, MediaTek, Samsung, etc ... Know ARM is not profitable, they know how much they spend to advance the ISA and they know how much they pay and they know that ARM can't keep up with them, but their licenses are too good and they pay peanuts. That is why they were so against Nvidia buying ARM not because they would do anything monopolistic but because they would raise prices, now ARM is raising them all on their own doing all the things they told the various regulators Nvidia would do because it is the only thing they can do to actually become profitable and what is Qualcomm, Broadcom and the rest doing... Suing ARM, for raising rates and putting together contracts they don't like on a technology their businesses are 100% dependent upon.

 

[erek]

Well, they have to, they have modified their contract wording so that when Qualcomm, Broadcom, MediaTek, Samsung, and all the others go to renew their licenses for ARM they will no longer be allowed to modify the designs, ARM has taken a take it or leave it approach to their licensing so no more 3'rd parties modifying the designs. ARM has to get that shit all in place before those contracts come up for renewal otherwise they are dead in the water, or they have to renew under the old terms which will bankrupt them.

What about Apple

 

[Lakados]

What about Apple

Apple has a perpetual agreement similar to the kind AMD has with Intel only much better, with AMD and Intel if AMD makes something cool like x86-64, Intel gets to use it as part of their licensing deal, it's a 2-way street.
Apple does not have a 2-way street agreement, ARM develops something and Apple gets access, Apple develops something and ARM can swivel on a mid-digit.
There is nothing ARM can do to modify this agreement, as it is perpetual, and if Nvidia or Softbank or anybody else tried they would find them with a non-functional ISA as Apple owns much of the patents that make it actually function so that buyer would need to try and reverse engineer it all while tanking a lawsuit, from not only Apple but every 3'rd party who licensed ARM as well.
There are more than a few rumors that state Nvidia backed out of the deal long before it died once they found out how embedded Apple was because say Nvidia changed the GPU from Mali to Turing, well Apple now gets all those Turing GPU cores as part of the deal too.

Apple will do Apple, and there isn't much anybody can go about changing that.

 

[DukenukemX]

Apple has a perpetual agreement similar to the kind AMD has with Intel only much better, with AMD and Intel if AMD makes something cool like x86-64, Intel gets to use it as part of their licensing deal, it's a 2-way street.
Apple does not have a 2-way street agreement, ARM develops something and Apple gets access, Apple develops something and ARM can swivel on a mid-digit.
There is nothing ARM can do to modify this agreement, as it is perpetual, and if Nvidia or Softbank or anybody else tried they would find them with a non-functional ISA as Apple owns much of the patents that make it actually function so that buyer would need to try and reverse engineer it all while tanking a lawsuit, from not only Apple but every 3'rd party who licensed ARM as well.
There are more than a few rumors that state Nvidia backed out of the deal long before it died once they found out how embedded Apple was because say Nvidia changed the GPU from Mali to Turing, well Apple now gets all those Turing GPU cores as part of the deal too.

Apple will do Apple, and there isn't much anybody can go about changing that.

I wonder if this is ARM's way around this agreement? ARM can't be happy that they can't charge Apple like they do with Qualcomm and MediaTek.

 

[Lakados]

I wonder if this is ARM's way around this agreement? ARM can't be happy that they can't charge Apple like they do with Qualcomm and MediaTek.

Well you can’t change a contract mid way, you can renegotiate at the end of its term but you can’t modify them with out both parties being in agreement.

The Apple license is perpetual, so no end date, so no renegotiation.

If ARM forcefully tries, Apple just takes their patents and goes home, ARM no longer has a functional ISA, and Apple launches a retaliatory lawsuit for breach of contract and files a cease and desist on all ARM sales that contain the infringing patents. Overnight every ARM based device is off the market while lawyers sort it out. To force the issue the 3’rd parties would turn and sue ARM for putting them in the situation.

Nope Apple has too much leverage and too many options, they could jump ship to Intel or AMD in a heartbeat if they were really pressed to the wall. Besides as far as the public is concerned every Apple victory has ARM mentioned in it so it’s about the best publicity they can ask for.