Nvidia gets its hands on ARM

© Nvidia.

On Sunday, SoftBank announced it was selling ARM Holdings to Nvidia for USD40 billion in cash and stock. The ARM architecture, sold under license, powers most modern phone processors, countless computers, gaming consoles and graphics cards. SoftBank had acquired ARM in 2016 for USD32 billion, whereas Nvidia will pay USD21.5 billion in stock and USD12 billion in cash, including USD2 billion on the barrel. SoftBank may also receive up to $5 billion in cash or stock subject to ARM hitting financial-performance targets, and Nvidia will also issue USD1.5 billion in stock to ARM employees. ARM will remain headquartered in its hometown of Cambridge, England. Nvidia is in direct or indirect competition with several ARM customers (including Intel, Samsung and Qualcomm) and on very bad terms with other companies like Apple. However, the company promises it will keep ARM licensing totally neutral.

⇨ Ars Technica, Arash Massoudi, Robert Smith, James Fontanella-Khan, “Nvidia buys ARM Holdings from SoftBank for $40 billion.”

⇨ Ars Technica, Ron Amadeo, “Nvidia will keep ARM licensing ‘neutral,’ wants to license GPU tech, too.”