SoftBank is looking for opportunities to sell some or all of its Arm Holdings operations as reported last week. A new report from Bloomberg Today he revealed more details about this possible sale, including preliminary negotiations with Apple and Nvidia.
Arm Holdings is a semiconductor company that licenses its technologies to various companies such as Apple, which uses the ARM architecture to build “Apple Silicon” processors for iPhone, iPad, and more.
According to Bloomberg, Arm’s acquisition may be the largest in the chip industry to date. The Japanese group behind SoftBank bought Arm in 2016 for approximately $ 32 billion, which is now part of a $ 100 billion Vision Fund.
As the chip market is constantly growing, investors are targeting companies in this segment even further.
Since that deal, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange’s semiconductor index has recovered 185% as investors invest money in an industry they bet on to grow rapidly, fueled by new markets and technologies such as automotive and artificial intelligence. .
Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg It says SoftBank was in talks with Apple to sell Arm Holdings to the Cupertino-based company. Almost all of the chips made by Apple are based on the ARM architecture, including the A series chip that powers the iPhone and iPad, the Apple Watch SoCs and now the Apple Silicon processors that are part of Intel’s transition to ARM in the Mac.
Apple has withdrawn from the tender as owning Arm’s licensing operations could raise concerns about how the company would deal with its competitors who also depend on Arm’s technologies. Still, Apple definitely has an interest in Arm’s future as the company has shipped more than 2 billion custom ARM chips within iOS devices in the past 13 years.
SoftBank is now negotiating Arm’s operations with Nvidia, which also had a partnership with Apple in the past. If the acquisition by Nvidia goes through, it could be considered a potential threat to companies like AMD and Intel, as they all license Arm technologies.
Whoever purchases Arm Holdings will surely face intense regulation by government agencies due to the complexity of Arm’s business.
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