What you’ll learn:
- 为什么这个行业是由Nvidia的不安冲击交流吗quisition of Arm
- 为什么这可能是对ARM被许可人的主要参与者的警钟
- 制造商现在可能正在考虑哪些其他潜在选择
Nvidia’s acquisition of Armrepresents a major shift and it will affect many of the players in the electronics space. Senior Content Director Bill Wong spoke with Mark Lippett, CEO ofxmos, to get his perspective of the impact of this acquisition.
How big a shock is this acquisition for the electronics sector?
The acquisition of Arm by Nvidia—an erstwhile customer of Arm—is potentially a seismic shock for the electronics sector, particularly for chip vendors. As should be immediately apparent, this acquisition is forcing a major rethink of one of the key assumptions that so much of the chip business has been built on for at least the last 20 years.
Contrary to established business wisdom that organizations should retain control of their strategic assets, the chip industry has been content to divest itself of processing technology and rely on licensing Arm technology.
Would they have made the same decision if the processor IP was being licensed by a competitor, say Nvidia, for example?
收购对制造商意味着什么？
This is a massive moment for manufacturers. Arm cores sit at the heart of 160 billion electronic devices, but I suspect a good number of those licensees are wringing their hands at the moment.
You could argue, given the reliance many chip companies have allowed themselves to have on Arm, that this is a case of chickens coming home to roost. That may be too simplistic—ultimately Arm has done a fantastic job at creating a proposition attractive enough to seduce even the biggest players into following this path.
Regardless, manufacturers are now faced with a major strategic choice that few if any were expecting. Do they stay within the Arm ecosystem and take their chances with continuing to license technology? Or do they turn down an entirely different strategic path?
Is there a conflict between Nvidia’s and Arm’s business models? Is it possible to resolve that conflict?
很难说这不会引起问题。以前由严格中立的政党许可的同一IP现在由许多ARM被许可人的直接竞争对手手中掌握。
Nvidia has promised to retain an “open-licensing model and customer neutrality” following the acquisition, but can the industry afford to continue to put its faith (and fortune) in this assurance? Does that mean Nvidia will remain as one of Arm’s customers with equal standing, keeping a level playing field for all?
Ultimately, that’s the million-dollar question for the industry. But only time will tell exactly how this potential conflict is resolved.
What do you predict Arm licensees will do in response?
As far as I can see, there are three potential paths to electronic manufacturers: 1) keep to business as usual, 2) pivot to another licensed architecture, or 3) gain back control of this most important of assets.
Business-as-usual seems an unlikely strategy, particularly for the largest Arm licensees, for whom this news will be a massive wake-up call.
There’s already lots of talk about manufacturers turning to other licensed cores. Synopsys offers its ARC processors, Cadence has its Tensilica processors, and of course RISC-V has received a lot of attention in the immediate aftermath of the announcement. But RISC-V is fragmented and immature, and licensing another processor from another company may just be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
最后的选择是芯片公司夺回其处理器架构的所有权。尽管此选项无疑是最具战略意义的，但并非没有风险或巨大的成本。真正准备好沿着这条路线的制造商？
What does the future look like as a result of this acquisition?
无法最大程度地减少这一消息对整个行业的重要性。未来将完全由制造商选择属于我先前概述的路径范围的地方来定义。
这些战略决策不可避免地会有一个过渡期，我认为确实会有各种回应。不过，一件事是可以肯定的。无论我们下一步我们去哪里，它看起来都不会像我们今天所拥有的那样。
