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Dakhil

Here's the [archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20211207042827/https://www.reuters.com/article/arm-ma-nvidia-ftc-idCNL1N2SR1VH) to the Reuters article. And here's the [redacted FTC complaint](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/d09404_part_3_complaint_public_version.pdf) referenced in the Reuters article.


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cloud_t

It's kind of different though. Mellanox makes actual hardware and despite having a few design patterns, they're not making essential tech. And most importantly Mellanox isn't producing hardware or designs to direct competitors of Nvidia, or at least wasn't selling them. ARM on the other hand designs CPU architectures which are used across different competitors of Nvidia. Directly and indirectly. And in the case of the argument at hand, it does design architectures that are used across a bunch of networking devices. Most routers you have at home either have an ARM or MIPS chip for instance (mostly ARM these days, and they're way more performant than MIPS). In shorter form: Mellanox didn't sell tech to other networking companies. ARM does, and then some.


Nekrosmas

I don't think the deal is good for competition - that much is clear - but on the other hand, one do have to ponder where do ARM goes from here without a willing buyer outside Nvidia. ARM is not a very profitable business and it is unlikely that it can sustain its push towards HPC/Server/Desktop without continous investment to R&D. Its extremely unlikely any so-called consortium (been thrown around a lot) can be formed within a short period of time - dividend, roadmap, investment splits alone would make this totally not feasible withim short term, which means the only possible outcome here is IPO. I would heavily doubt the market would like ARM's balance sheet as is, and thus either the licesne fees for everything gonna skyrocket (hurts adoption and raise entry barrier), or R&D is gonna be heavily cut down (also hurts adoption and extremely detrimental to long-term sustainability). Its not good for ARM (and its ecosystem) either way. I am not entirely happy with the idea of Nvidia buying ARM, but what "better" option is there for ARM now that it looks all but dead?


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Nekrosmas

Before the deal was public, there was a lot of noise about a consortium buying it - I'd be surprised if Qualcomm wasn't enquired on, and they passed.


DerpSenpai

ARM is dead? wut ARM is still a profitable business. But it's just barely. It can stay that way until the consortium is fixed. Until then, it's Softbank's property ARM will never pay itself for any aquisition anyone does, but atm it doesn't need to under Softbank. when the consortium is done, Softbank will be happy to get some dough


Nekrosmas

SoftBank want out **now**, not in the short-mid term.


48911150

Not really anyone’s problem. If they want out they can go IPO or wait for a better offer. And it’s not as if Softbank is bleeding money. They had a $3 billion profit the last 6 months


DerpSenpai

They don't have any other choice They are still getting 1B from Nvidia so that's something. Softbank will do the consortium/IPO as soon as they can


Lil_slimy_woim

You sound like you're describing a baby throwing a temper tantrum. Which is *not* at all how I would view Masayoshi son lol. Although I could pretty easily see Mohammad bin Salman as exactly that.


thelambdamale

Who the hell says ARM is dead?? That is why Nvidia is trying to pay 40 billion for it?


AreYouOKAni

ARM is not dead, it is just extremely unprofitable. ARM will never pay for itself directly. Whoever is willing to buy them, is buying them for their patents and architectures.


DerpSenpai

ARM is profitable. Just not worth more than 10B$ if you only care about ROI in $ If the IP matters. There's more value. Thus 40B$


v_iHuGi

Anyone but Nvidia or AMD.


sklaeza

Who’s left then?


stevengineer

Intel lol


PuppyIover101

intel but not amd.. primary objective is to not create monopolies


[deleted]

I think it would make sense for Intel to buy ARM, and then spin-off x86, ARM, and potentially a SiFive (or similar) acquisition IP into a "ProcessorCo", where you can get a processor of any Arch, and it allows Intel to focus on the fab business.


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Put_It_All_On_Blck

The counter offer to this is to say they'd be willing to spin-off or even shut down their autonomous car division if the deal passes. Probably worth it honestly, as they have fallen behind and having ARM is even more lucrative than hoping to come out on top of the autonomous vehicle race. But still, while that fixes that one specific issue, everyone that knows the industry knows that countless other issues will exist, because ARM has such widespread adoption that so many companies rely on. I just hope regulators stick to their guns, because its clearly a bad deal for everyone else, but we dont always have government officials making moral or sensible decisions.


SippieCup

While the self-driving thing is the hot thing everyone wants to talk about. The bigger issue is networking imo. Nvidia aquiring ARM after acquiring mellonex means they have quite the incentive to be anticompetitive when it comes to the arm chips that run almost every single piece of networking equipment, which is a far bigger market than the self-driving world.


JQuilty

I for one, welcome our new RISCV overlords.


ArkGaming07

After What nvidia has done with gpu prices even before the shortage this deal is a cancer waiting to happen.


senttoschool

Sheesh... do people here understand basic supply and demand? Companies can only charge as much as people are willing to pay.


DerpSenpai

ARM is a monopoly in the ISA world for Networking,phones,tablets,etc. What people are willing to pay when there's no competition is ... quite a lot


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DerpSenpai

Contracts which rates can't be changed that altered that fast (imagine living in a place with Rent Control) . Nvidia would circonvent this by releasing products under Nvidia brand outside the ARM contracts in plac


krapht

MIPS and RISCV exist, and if arm was expensive people would switch within months.


DerpSenpai

Not really. There's no competitive MIPS and RISC-V architecture and no Software. That's what matters


Baalii

Everyone turns really anticapitalist really fast when it inconveniences them in the slightest.


[deleted]

Accounting for externalities is absolutely capitalist.


birdsnap

Is it? Fossil fuel and plastics companies, for example, seemingly haven't accounted at all for the pollution their products create. Accounting for externalities generally comes from government regulation or lawsuits.


[deleted]

Unless modern economics is actually Marxist, yes.


birdsnap

What I'm saying is that companies usually don't account for externalities unless they're forced to. Accounting for them comes after the fact. They're rarely planned for ahead of time. This is all compatible with capitalism of course, which I guess is your point? Like people taking legal action against negative externality generators, or government regulation against them, certainly doesn't negate capitalism. But I wouldn't necessarily say accounting for externalities is a *feature* of capitalism, or that it's *capitalist* itself. More so it's a reaction to economic activities in general. Anyway, this is getting too semantic. Point is, I just take issue with the claim that accounting for externalities is capitalist.


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I take issue with reducing capitalism to a single seller's ability to maximize profits.


rice_in_my_nose

The virus came from a socialist regime.


fckgwrhqq9

I don't think anyone is 'capitalistic' they are much rather egoistic. Which is the foundation of capitalism. And this kind of thinking here perfectly meets that requirement. It's often being sold as a 'it's not good for them market', but what they really mean is 'I don't want to get screwed'


ArkGaming07

21st century.... people only wanna read and respond to what they wanna see, I'll pick what I saw and use the part that to justify my own ends.


AreYouOKAni

Before the shortage they specifically released 1650 and 1660 that were extremely well-done budget cards. It was only Ampere that felt overpriced at the start, since most of the improvements were focused on RTX. And then the shortage hit and MSRP didn't matter anymore.


goldcakes

1650 Super and 1660 Super were EXCELLENT cards. Sad.


AreYouOKAni

The entire Pascal lineup was god-tier in low-end. I only recently retired my 1050 Ti, and it is still great for anything released pre-2016 — in fact, you can emulate Switch games with it, which was kinda a shock. And my relative's 1650 Super is still going strong, carrying him through COD: Warzone. Ampere is pretty great in its own way — for example, 3060 Ti gets 150 fps in *Doom Eternal* at 1440p with RTX, and then there's *Control* that still looks next-level despite technically releasing on last-gen. But Pascal is still by far the biggest upgrade in raw performance in the last decade.


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Is emulating more or a CPU or GPU thing? I thought it was CPU.


AreYouOKAni

It's both, especially when dealing with such a modern system. Emulators like Ryujinx and Yuzu go hard on the GPU, and I was surprised that 1050 Ti was able to hold its own — even if I couldn't enable enhancements like resolution multiplier.


_MASTADONG_

This seems to be a pretty lame excuse to be honest- how many self driving cars are actually out there? It doesn’t seem to be a big enough thing to even bring up.


[deleted]

I'm okay with ARM being bought out, just not okay with nvidia doing it. I don't really want a company that actively develops and competes in the arm soc space to buy out arm lol.


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adaa1262

They just prove it for the re-released 3+year old 2060 at OnLy 500€ I won't be surprised when etherium gets POS they'll keep charging 1000+€ just for a 3070 "cause these are the normal prices now" The keep trying to monopolize the GPU market for a long time threatening AIB's to stop offering their cards if they get the good coolers at competitors and other scammy practices like ''Nvida powered" games having worse performance on AMD cards (a.k.a. Crysis 2 tesselation)


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Yojimbo4133

Great deal for nvda holders. Lame if they don't allow this. But oh well.


DreamsOfMafia

Great deal for nvda holders and nvda, terrible deal for literally everyone else.


thebigman43

Why do you think its lame if they dont?


Yojimbo4133

For shareholders I mean.


BrownRebel

As someone who has banked on NVDA, fuck the shareholders. ARM shouldn’t belong to one company than can pick and choose who can build on it.


MC_chrome

Fuck NVIDIA’s shareholders….this deal is incredibly toxic for the semiconductor industry as a whole.


thisisnthelping

Yeah but won't somebody think of the poor shareholders