That's not quite accurate based on the filings. Rather it should read that ARM has existing agreements with a number of companies, Amazon, Apple, Samsung, even Nvidia.
The ARM architecture is so ubiquitous that everyone wants a piece. I kind of think of ARM as a DMZ: The business model of licensing IP to a broad range of clients means that a lot of companies have a vested interest in ARM remaining a neutral party. We've seen with Nvidia and others that ARM isn't a clean acquisition target, so now everyone gets a place at the table, and thus license security for the long term. It's a bit similar to OpenAI, and how I think that in today's market, no regulator would allow a major tech company to acquire them.
And by "forever" it is meant ~1994; see Cheswick and Bellovin (§3.1):
> Up to this point, we have used the words “firewall” and “gateway” rather casually. We will now be more precise. A firewall, in general, consists of several different components (Figure 3.1). The “filters” (sometimes called “screens”) block transmission of certain classes of traffic. A gateway is a machine or a set of machines that provides relay services to compensate for the effects of the filter. The network inhabited by the gateway is often called the demilitarized zone (DMZ). A gateway in the DMZ is sometimes assisted by an internal gateway. Typically, the two gateways will have more open communication through the inside filter than the outside gateway has to other internal hosts. Either filter, or for that matter the gateway itself, may be omitted; the details will vary from firewall to firewall. In general, the outside filter can be used to protect the gateway from attack, while the inside filter is used to guard against the consequences of a compromised gateway. Either or both filters can protect the internal network from assaults. An exposed gateway machine is often called a bastion host.
Are there any historical examples of such a company - ubiquitous yet still a small fish, slightly troubled corporate history, but too important to be acquired by someone else?
I believe Apple was a founding investor in ARM and has a perpetual license to much (all?) of ARM’s IP. I’m not sure ARM’s prospective shareholders should ever have expected much revenue from Apple.
Anything that sounds like Apple making a 15+ year commitment to the ARM platform is going to benefit ARM's IPO massively, so the real question is what Apple got from this.
Not sure that undermines the premise it’s about locking down IP access on Apple’s term’s. An ARM buyer or even just new management will have a harder time coming in and jacking up prices on Apple before 2040.
> But given how much Apple relies on Arm’s designs for the custom chips powering its most popular and profitable products, like the iPhone, Mac, iPad, and Apple Watch, in addition to the upcoming Vision Pro, it signals that Apple plans to continue utilizing Arm’s technology platform for a very long time to come.
But Apple doesn't rely on Arm designs for anything? I think it's just sloppy writing, but I'm not sure I'd trust the analysis that follows weak reporting.
Apple relies on the ARM ISA so this new agreement may cover ARMv9 or something. If you want to argue that an ISA is not a "design" journalists don't understand the difference.
Great find! I really dig these circular stories that shape the electronics history. The story behind ARM has always fascinated me. The search for low power with efficiency kind of seems like the holy grail of the time. The Acorn story reminds me a lot of the Po Bronson novel "The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest: [1]
1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/306422.The_First_20_Mill...
They were really out of cash. Jobs convinced Gates to give them $150MM as well (Apple's existence helped MS with antitrust; Apple desperately needed the cash).
But as Jobs pointed out at a conference where this came up, the perception that the Mac had legs (because Microsoft still was committed to them) was far more important than the money.
If people don't have confidence in your platform, all the money in the world doesn't mean squat.
Patience. RISC-V is an unstoppable freight train but it isn’t yet up to speed.
RISC-V is not yet ready for the high end needs that Apple has. RISC-V doesn't yet have the single core performance nor the ability to scale to many cores like ARM does -- or at least I haven't seen it.
I think that when RISC-V can do this and is competitive with ARM, Apple could look at it. Apple isn't married to ARM forever, remember it used to be Motorola, then IBM PowerPC, then Intel x86 and now ARM.
Given that Apple just did the transition to ARM, I do not expect they will look around for the ARM successor for a while. But a decade from now it wouldn't be surprising for them to consider RISC-V, at that point its capabilities should rival ARM if not exceed it while also being much more easily customized.
Apple has used RISC-V in some embedded controller implementations recently. Perhaps due to licensing cost or perhaps just to get experience with the chipset.
The ARM architecture is so ubiquitous that everyone wants a piece. I kind of think of ARM as a DMZ: The business model of licensing IP to a broad range of clients means that a lot of companies have a vested interest in ARM remaining a neutral party. We've seen with Nvidia and others that ARM isn't a clean acquisition target, so now everyone gets a place at the table, and thus license security for the long term. It's a bit similar to OpenAI, and how I think that in today's market, no regulator would allow a major tech company to acquire them.