
Nvidia's Arm deal sparks quick backlash in chip industry - nabla9
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-arm-holdings-m-a-nvidia-industry-anal/nvidias-arm-deal-sparks-quick-backlash-in-chip-industry-idUKKBN2650GT
======
someperson
Being able to block ARM reference designs from Huawei's HiSilicon and other
fabless Chinese semiconductor firms like Rockchip and Allwinner has a huge
impact on the United States' ability to block China's technological ambitions.

Right now I'm not interesting in having a debate about whether or not that's a
good thing, but it would be good to have a realistic and sober discussion
about the impact on this acquisition on China's technological ambitions.

There have been recent reports that China's leading semiconductor firm (called
SMIC) will be added to the Entity List, which will blocks its access to
western technology. If true, this effectively scuttles China's attempts to
compete with Taiwan's TSMC and reach semiconductor fabrication parity. SMIC's
ambitions heavily rely on freely accessing US-aligned technology: specifically
lithography equipment from the Netherlands-based ASML and engineers poached
from Taiwan's world-leading semiconductor manufacturing firms.

On the x86 front, when AMD was desperate for cash a few years ago they setup
joint ventures with China (THATIC and Hygon) and were transferring AMD's then
current-generation Zen 1 architecture to China. Further transfer has also been
blocked via the Entity List. It's also worth noting that AMD is in a much
better financial position after the success of their Ryzen product line, so
has less need to make difficult trade-offs by transferring their current-
generation technology in exchange for short-term cash injections, so it seems
very unlikely they will applying for an export license.

At this point, if I was China, I would invest heavily in RISC-V based cores,
and openly release highly competitive designs.

~~~
bakuninsbart
There is an ongoing fight between ARM China and ARM HQ, and the CEO of ARM
China simply refused to accept her dismissal. [1] I guess this is a political
point (and I'm sorry), but it might be that ARM China simply refuses to
acknowledge US sanctions in the future.

> At this point, if I was China, I would invest heavily in RISC-V based cores,
> and openly release highly competitive designs.

That's actually exactly what they are doing![2] Alibaba claims to have
developed the most powerful RISC-V processor up to date [3] and Huawei has
long been rumoured to be working on their own design.

[1] [https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/China-tech/Arm-China-
asks-B...](https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/China-tech/Arm-China-asks-Beijing-
to-intervene-in-row-with-UK-parent)

[2] [https://cntechpost.com/2020/07/25/risc-v-processor-
designed-...](https://cntechpost.com/2020/07/25/risc-v-processor-designed-by-
five-chinese-university-students-successfully-tape-out/)

[3] [https://www.nextplatform.com/2020/08/21/alibaba-on-the-
bleed...](https://www.nextplatform.com/2020/08/21/alibaba-on-the-bleeding-
edge-of-risc-v-with-xt910/)

~~~
jiggawatts
It never occurred to me that a division of a company could just... secede from
the parent company.

What could the parent company even do if something like this occurred across
less-then-friendly national boundaries? Could the parent company sue to force
the errant division to close? In what court?

It's bizarre that it's not more common...

~~~
riffraff
it's even more bizarre: Wu controls Arm China because he's physically in
control of a seal that gives him power to sign documents with the company
authority[0].

[0]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-01/main-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-01/main-
street-doesn-t-want-weird-loans) look for "Who controls a company?"

~~~
jsjohnst
This is so comical and yet so expected when you give arbitrary importance to
things like that.

~~~
oehtXRwMkIs
It's a cultural thing, though it does seem a bit extreme in this case.

------
supernova87a
_> Being able to block ARM reference designs etc.... has a huge impact on the
United States' ability to block China's technological ambitions._

Practically speaking, aren't ARM designs so widely used among the major chip
manufacturers that Chinese companies/agencies are likely to have copies of
important stuff anyway?

Or does the implementation of ARM designs work somehow more proprietarily (or
opaquely?) than just the customers receiving files full of chip designs?

Because I imagine that the prohibition against being able to use ARM is really
only meaningful to _legal_ and royalty-paying law-abiding customers. If a
rogue agent has the designs already, what's to stop them from using them?

I'd be curious to know how ARM protects the designs from just being copied, or
what the mechanism here is. Or maybe their designs are useless without the
supporting software, etc. ? ARM's value is the _licensing_ of the designs and
that they hold patents/copyrights, not the absolute knowledge of the designs
-- is that right? Are their designs themselves that hard to copy?

~~~
nabla9
It's not about having the designs as you think. It's about the ability to sell
products based on ARM IP.

* "rogue agent" can't sell products with ARM based technology inside.

* "rogue agent" can't produce ARM based chips in foreign fabs (TSMC, Samsung)

~~~
colinmhayes
With it looking like SMIC will be added to the excluded company list I don't
think they'd mind producing unlicensed chips. I doubt the Chinese government
would ban their sale either.

------
ckastner
With NVIDIA relying on Samsung for fabbing their new Ampere line of GPUs using
their 8nm process, and Samsung now relying on NVIDIA for ARM, I wonder how
this relationship will develop.

I'm guessing that NVIDIA will try to squeeze value out of this acquisition
(though not as aggressively as, say, Qualcomm would), but going too far might
backfire on them.

------
varbhat
Good time to look at RISC-V . Some companies in chip industry may do it.

------
krona
Unfortunately, the more Chinese companies complain, the more likely the deal
will go ahead unopposed by US/UK/Japanese regulators.

~~~
swarnie_
Could be a nice one for UK regulators to hold over the world, need some ammo
for those various trade negotiations that are on going/up coming.

The US have exercised the same form of economic warfare (and when that fails
actual warfare) for decades now, might as well take a turn.

------
gridlockd
> "China is going to hate it"

The upside is that when mainlanders are upset, they can use their smarts to
push forward RISC-V.

> South Korean chip industry officials and experts said that Nvidia’s Arm buy
> would intensify Nvidia’s competition with Samsung, Qualcomm and others in
> self-driving cars and other future technologies, while raising concerns that
> Arm could hike licensing fees for competitors.

Oh no, more competition! Maybe Samsung can ask its little brother, the South
Korean government, to intervene.

------
novaRom
What we observe right now is the beginning of AI tech wars. I hope it will
stay cold and will boost new peaceful applications.

------
phendrenad2
To those of you who haven't made a CPU before: CPU technology is more like a
javascript framework than a natural resource. When someone says "block China
from US CPU ISAs" think "block China from US javascript frameworks". Then
you'll have the appropriate sense of how silly it is.

~~~
polymorph1sm
If javascript frameworks is patented then yes, you can. For reference ARM big
little scheduler is patented[1], you need to license from ARM if you use any
of their big little design. RISC-V under BSD license might change this.

[1]
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US9710309](https://patents.google.com/patent/US9710309)

~~~
dash2
If push comes to shove, why would you expect China to respect a set of patents
that strangle its economic growth?

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
Because that would result in a more devastating response from the side that
holds patents. If china stops respecting international trade laws and
agreements, other nations will hurt china's interests in return. Given the
scale of the things, the weak spots will be found inevitably.

~~~
michaelt
Judging from China's policies towards Uighur Muslims and Hong Kong, I think
China isn't very worried about foreign censure.

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
There is a difference. Nobody in the first world _really_ cares about Uighurs
or Hong Kong. However, there are quite a handful of parties who _do care_
about patents (and resulting profits).

~~~
sangnoir
China has been pilfering intellectual property from labs & private companies
via APTs for the last couple of _years:_ what are the handful of parties who
care about patents going to do - write a strongly worded letter? If China
decides it wants to get the latest ARM design and/or ISA in the future, do you
doubt they can acquire them? Sure, they won't be able to call it "ARM" but you
can bet it will be compatible[1].

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_Peri#Fiat_Panda_cop...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_Peri#Fiat_Panda_copy_controversy)

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
They wouldn't be able to sell products with this 'acquired' architecture to
anyone. Just ask how Huawey sales are doing in US and Europe.

------
ferros
Separating the ARM specific concerns could someone shed light on the
generalised apprehension around Nvidia?

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FpUser
"...Nvidia took great pains to emphasize that Arm will continue to act as a
neutral supplier..."

Yeah, right. Even if by some magic nVidia has this intention (hard to believe)
it will only last right up until Trump or his successor decide to use it as a
club against whatever country they decide not to like at the moment.

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cheschire
> Nvidia will retain Arm’s United Kingdom headquarters - which exempt it from
> many U.S. export control laws

I was not aware that all it took for a U.S. company to profit from bypassing
national security concerns, human rights protections, and weapons
proliferation limits[0] was to simply open a foreign HQ or buy a company with
one.

Not that Arm or Nvidia plan to do any of those things, but it sounds like a
regulatory moat to me.

0:
[https://2009-2017.state.gov/strategictrade/overview/index.ht...](https://2009-2017.state.gov/strategictrade/overview/index.htm)

~~~
throwaway4good
Or they just want to protect themselves and their customers from an US
administration gone off the rails.

~~~
victords
And so they have an office in a politically stable region: The UK!

