Whether it be a chipset from Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, Huawei, or MediaTek, they all rely on the technology and architecture of Arm Holdings, which is currently owned by SoftBank. We had previously heard that SoftBank was looking to sell off Arm Holdings and that NVIDIA was a potential customer.
It turns out that NVIDIA could now be the frontrunner in picking up the company, at least that’s according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal (paywall) in which they claim that SoftBank is nearing a deal that would essentially see NVIDIA acquire Arm Holdings from the Japanese firm.
The deal, if successful, is said to be valued at over $40 billion in a combination of both cash and stock. This would make it the largest deal ever in the semiconductor industry, where previously SoftBank had acquired Arm Holdings for $32 billion. There are, of course, several concerns about this acquisition.
This includes potential concerns that would be raised amongst antitrust regulators as well as companies, such as Apple, who license Arm’s technology for their chipsets. We expect that NVIDIA will most probably continue to license out the technology, but whether or not they’ll be changing the rules of the licenses remains to be seen.
Filed in . Read more about NVIDIA and Softbank. Source: macrumors