Nvidia just announced that it has reached an agreement with Arm and Softbank (Arm’s current owner) to purchase Arm for a collection of stock and cash that could total up to $40 billion. It’s a huge deal that could shake up the semiconductor industry. Nvidia is the dominant force in high performance graphics and increasingly in AI and machine learning. Arm licenses IP, CPU, and GPU designs to many companies, including nearly every smartphone chip maker.
That includes Apple. Nearly all of Apple’s products now contain Arm-compatible CPUs. The iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and HomePod all feature processors that run the Arm instruction set. Modern Macs have the Arm-based T1 or T2 processors in them to perform some tasks, and Apple has publicized its intent to shift away from Intel in favor of Arm-based processors of its own design.
