The founder of Arm asked the British Prime Minister for help overnight. The future of NVIDIA's 40 billion acquisition is uncertain.

On September 13, local time in the United States, NVIDIA officially announced that it would acquire Arm, a British chip manufacturer under Softbank Group, for as much as 40 billion US dollars (excluding Arm's Internet of Things service).

This acquisition is not only the biggest transaction in the world's chip history, but also one of the biggest acquisitions so far this year.

According to the agreement, NVIDIA will pay Softbank NVIDIA stock worth $265.438+$50 million and cash worth $654.38+$20 million, of which $2 billion will be paid immediately after signing the contract.

In a joint statement, the two companies said that if Arm's future performance reaches a specific target, Softbank may get an additional $5 billion in cash or stock, and will retain 65,438+00% of the shares in the new entity. In addition, after the acquisition is completed, NVIDIA will also issue 654.38+0.5 billion USD equity to Arm employees. ?

As the world's top three chip companies by market value and the world's largest mobile phone chip design factory, the merger of NVIDIA and Arm will undoubtedly usher in great changes in the global semiconductor industry.

Softbank sold ARM? Realize strong alliance

From 65438 to 0978, ARM was founded in Cambridge, England. As an independent processor company, it is mainly engaged in the research and development of low-cost, low-power and high-performance chips, and is famous for designing the architecture of ARM processors. It is worth noting that ARM does not manufacture chips, but licenses its technical intellectual property rights to many famous semiconductor factories in the world. ?

Especially in the field of mobile phones, ARM chips are famous. Billions of new chips need to be licensed every year. For example, Huawei's Kirin chip is based on the core architecture transformation of ARM, and then entrusted to wafer manufacturers for production. ?

In addition, ARM has been committed to the application of its chips in a wider range of fields. Today, the company has entered a new growth market, such as the PC field. This year, Apple announced the full adoption of ARM processors in its iconic Mac product line. ?

2065438+In July 2006, Softbank acquired the company for 24.3 billion pounds (about 32 billion US dollars) in cash. At that time, the acquisition was called the boldest and largest investment of Softbank. ?

However, the good times did not last long. Due to the failure of investment in Uber and WeWork, and the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, Softbank fell into a cash crisis after losing billions of dollars. Since then, Softbank has been carrying out strategic contraction. In order to alleviate the cash pressure, he has no choice but to sell some businesses and shares, including his shares in Alibaba and most of the shares of wireless operator T-Mobile America. ?

In April, it was reported that Softbank Group had entrusted Goldman Sachs to find a suitable buyer for Arm. There are rumors that Goldman Sachs has contacted industry giants such as Apple and Samsung, but they have all been rejected. Moreover, Sun Zhengyi, chairman and president of Softbank, initially estimated that the transaction price of Arm was 52 billion US dollars. After the separation of the Internet of Things department and several rounds of negotiations, the final price was set at 40 billion US dollars.

Judging from the current results, only "Lao Huang" NVIDIA came to the end.

Lao Huang, a native of Huang Renxun, was born in Tainan in 1963, immigrated to the United States in 1972, graduated from Stanford, and founded Nvidia NVIDIA in 1993. CEO.?

In recent years, the development speed of NVIDIA has been gradually accelerated, and its market value has been climbing all the way. Not long ago, it surpassed Intel with a market value of $300 billion and became the top three chip manufacturers in the world.

As the chip manufacturer with the highest market value in the United States and the third largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world, Invista also has its own shortcomings, that is, the company's applications in smart phones, tablets, televisions and IoT? There is almost no share in other fields. And Arm just holds the absolute right to speak on the mobile side, so buy it directly? Arm is actually the best shortcut for NVIDIA to fill the business gap.

Once the merger is successful, NVIDIA will integrate graphics card /AI, network and CPU, completely integrate chip design and production, and perfectly combine the leading AI computing platform with the ecosystem of Arm, as it said on official Twitter: to build a top computing company in the AI era. Therefore, Huang Renxun is expected to become the absolute master of the global chip industry. ?

Arouse strong opposition from peers.

However, the combination of the two has aroused strong concern and opposition from the global chip industry.

The main reason is that Arm, as the design and intellectual property supplier of most semiconductor industries in the world, has licensed its technology to customers such as Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics, but there is irreconcilable competition between these companies and NVIDIA.

In fact, the 654.38+06 billion chips sold by Arm based on its technology have long been derived into a huge device ecosystem, involving a wide range.

The outside world is worried that once it is taken over by NVIDIA, Arm, which has always adhered to the open concept, will be restrained, and the geopolitical situation will become increasingly tense, which will affect related enterprises around the world.

"Being acquired by NVIDIA will do harm to Arm and its ecosystem. Independence is crucial to the continued success of Arm. Once this is destroyed, its value will begin to be eroded. " CCS, a market research organization? Jeff Braber, vice president of American studies at Insight? Blaber) said. ?

For chip companies in China, this acquisition is not good news either. "This is equivalent to holding the necks of all mobile terminal chip manufacturers." A number of domestic mobile communication chip companies said.

Although NVIDIA has repeatedly promised that after the acquisition, Arm will remain in the UK headquarters (not subject to US export control laws), Arm will continue to maintain its previous business model in oauth2.0 while maintaining global customer neutrality. Through Arm's Silicon Valley partner network, NVIDIA will authorize some designs of NVIDIA, including its GPU technology, so that Arm partners can benefit from the products of the two companies, including many innovative products from NVIDIA.

But this statement does not convince the industry.

Some executives and experts in the Korean chip industry even worry that NVIDIA's acquisition of Arm may intensify the competition between NVIDIA and Samsung, Qualcomm and other companies in self-driving cars and other future technologies. At the same time, people are also worried that Arm may increase the license fees of competitors.

"This move marks NVIDIA's attempt to further deepen the automotive chip market, and its self-driving car technology is about to take off, with Samsung and Qualcomm as the main promoters. And NVIDIA's acquisition of Arm means that "there will be a terrible competitor in the automobile processor chip market. "Park, President of Korea Semiconductor and Display Technology Society? Zhenjun said. ?

The co-founder of Arm turned to the British Prime Minister for help overnight.

Unexpectedly, even Arm co-founder Herman? Hauser has joined the "singing down" takeover camp. Previously, he publicly stated more than once that selling Arm to NVIDIA would be an industry disaster. After the deal was officially announced today, he directly issued an open letter asking the government to "save" Arm, claiming that if the Prime Minister did nothing about it, he would become "the person who turned Britain into a vassal state of the United States".

The following is a translation of the open letter:

Dear Prime Minister,

As one of the founders of arm, I am very concerned about the sale of Arm to NVIDIA, and this letter was signed by my colleagues in Cambridge and people in the British financial and electronic industries.

First of all, we are worried that the work of thousands of Arm employees in Cambridge will be affected. Moving its headquarters to the United States will inevitably lead to the loss of jobs and influence in Britain, just as Kraft saw when it bought Cadbury.

Secondly, selling Arm to NVIDIA will destroy the fundamentals of Arm's business model. Arm could have been called "Switzerland" in the semiconductor industry, and traded with more than 500 licensees in an equal way. Most of them are competitors of NVIDIA, including many British companies.

Third, and most importantly, in the long run, this is a question of national economic sovereignty.

Arm is the only leading technology company in Britain, which plays a leading role in the field of mobile phone microprocessors. Its market share exceeds 95%. Britain is dominated by American companies in the field of science and technology, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Apple. Since the US President weaponized the technological superiority in the trade war with China, Britain will become an collateral victim unless it has its own negotiating weapon. Arm powers the smartphones of Apple, Samsung, Sony, Huawei and almost all other brands in the world, so it can influence them.

Selling Arm to NVIDIA means that Arm will be bound by CFIUS regulations in the United States. There are hundreds of companies in the British electronics industry, employing tens of thousands of people to use ARM in their products. Many of these products are exported to major markets in the world, including China, which means that they must comply with the regulations of CFIUS in the United States.

This puts Britain in an incredible position, that is, the White House, not Downing Street, will decide who to sell weapons to. Sovereignty used to be mainly a geographical issue, but now economic sovereignty is equally important. Returning Britain's most powerful trade weapon to the United States is to make Britain a vassal state of the United States.

To this end, we believe that the following three conditions must be met to complete this transaction. And they must be legally binding, otherwise they will be useless:

1, Cambridge job security.

2. NVIDIA shall not enjoy more preferential treatment than other Arm customers.

3. Britain must be exempted from American CFIUS regulations to ensure that British companies can use our own microprocessor technology without restrictions.

The natural choice for selling Arm to NVIDIA is to let Arm go public on the London Stock Exchange, and let it become a British-funded company again, with gold shares to protect the national economic security. Since you have spent 500 million pounds to help OneWeb get out of Chapter 1 1, this is not as important as Arm in the UK, so you can spend1200 million pounds as a major investor in the IPO of the London Stock Exchange. Initial public offering (IPO) has always been a way for Softbank to announce its liquidity.

If you don't do this deal for the national interest, history will not regard you as the person who took Britain out of Europe, but as the person who turned Britain into a vassal state of the United States.

Herman? Hauser? Sincerity from doctors

It is reported that this transaction will face strict scrutiny due to the involvement of many stakeholders, and it needs to be approved by China, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom. It is expected that regulatory approval will be required? 18? For a month. ?

Government, anti-monopoly department, industry competitors and Arm co-founders will all become obstacles on the road of this huge transaction. It seems that it is far from easy for Lao Huang to unify the chip rivers and lakes.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.