I saw that. I also saw a lot of commentary about it being a very bad idea for nearly everyone involved. Softbank may not provide the level playing field ARM did. Once the game is crooked, or at least believed to be, there might be mass defections.
Softbank a Chinese company? That is interesting. It would be even more interesting to see how all of the those companies that have banked on the ARM design react to the sell. It may provide an opportunity for other chip companies that are non ARM based to get a foot into some of ARMs business and may help Intel and AMD in the end. FPGAs are starting to gain some steam in the PSoC sector and this maneuver could help spur that along. Perhaps a Propeller PSoC could be in the future?
Yes but, read the linked article. Softbank is very much intertwined with the Chinese.
Perhaps that's where all the money, which they don't have, is coming from.
All in all this is no good for anyone. Time to step up the RISC V effort for the next generations of mobile and IoT things. In my dreams all the tech folks at ARM would quit if this sale goes through and start on that. Perhaps with funding from Google, MS, Facebook whoever has a stake.
Oh dear, seriously confused 'reporting' there
"UK-based ARM Holdings, a company which makes chips present in virtually every mobile and "connected" device"
Nope, ARM Holdings does not make chips, nor are they the only player in the 'connected' space.
Look on here for ESP8266, which is a price leader in WiFi, and that does not use ARM.
ESP32 seems to be shipping in August, again, no ARM core there...
Yeah, ARM does not make chips; they just sell their IP to vendors such as TI, NXP, STM and the likes so they can make their own chips. However, ARM is not the only player in the connected world. Other options are Microchip's PIC32, TI MSP, Renesas processors and many others. ARM and Intel just get most of the air play in the media especially when the two start creeping into each other's space.
As far as the ESP8266 is concerned, it is a very cheap device that one can get for a couple of bucks from Chinese vendors but they are highly unreliable; especially when made in mass. I don't see these being used much in anything thing that is serious outside of the Maker Space arena or perhaps low cost non critical devices. The ESP32 does look interesting since it is offering Bluetooth as well, but many others out there are doing the same thing. Perhaps Espressif can fix their reliability issue with the new chip though.
Perhaps ARM makes chips in the same way that Apple makes phones. I.e. not at all. We can excuse a pit of sloppy reporting here.
Certainly there are other MCU players. But a bit above MCU's we have billions of Linux running embedded devices. Phones, tabs, TV's, all kind of things.
Perhaps ARM makes chips in the same way that Apple makes phones. I.e. not at all. We can excuse a pit of sloppy reporting here.
Certainly there are other MCU players. But a bit above MCU's we have billions of Linux running embedded devices. Phones, tabs, TV's, all kind of things.
Got a chuckle out of that use of pit. Between poor spelling, incorrect wording, and erroneous facts it does seem apropos.
As far as the ESP8266 is concerned, it is a very cheap device that one can get for a couple of bucks from Chinese vendors but they are highly unreliable; especially when made in mass....
Do you mean the chips actually fail in large numbers, or that the RF link is unreliable in field use ?
Wifi here (Internet to PC/Tablets) seems to have a great many link issues, and poor up-times, but that is what you buy into with RF links.
My paranoia is kicking in. When you license ARM IP to build into *your* chip, do you just get a black box that you plug into or do you get source that you then wrap and integrate with your IP? You can see where I'm headed here....if somebody just hands me a black box and says, "here, build this into your product", I'm a bit skeptical...if it is essential a foreign government, especially China, I'm even more skeptical. If it is a black box, I don't like the potential for vulnerabilities.
A couple of decades ago such a sale would have been impossible. No Western government would have allowed a predatory foreign nation control of such critical IP.
It's one thing for China to steal IP and peddle it back to greedy Westerners but it's another to hand over your crown jewels.
As it is, it would be foolish for any corporation not to expect China to design back doors into any black box they sell us. As such I'd be looking at moving away from any ARM design that isn't completely known.
Leon
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-18/did-china-just-buy-most-important-company-world
Perhaps that's where all the money, which they don't have, is coming from.
All in all this is no good for anyone. Time to step up the RISC V effort for the next generations of mobile and IoT things. In my dreams all the tech folks at ARM would quit if this sale goes through and start on that. Perhaps with funding from Google, MS, Facebook whoever has a stake.
Oh dear, seriously confused 'reporting' there
"UK-based ARM Holdings, a company which makes chips present in virtually every mobile and "connected" device"
Nope, ARM Holdings does not make chips, nor are they the only player in the 'connected' space.
Look on here for ESP8266, which is a price leader in WiFi, and that does not use ARM.
ESP32 seems to be shipping in August, again, no ARM core there...
As far as the ESP8266 is concerned, it is a very cheap device that one can get for a couple of bucks from Chinese vendors but they are highly unreliable; especially when made in mass. I don't see these being used much in anything thing that is serious outside of the Maker Space arena or perhaps low cost non critical devices. The ESP32 does look interesting since it is offering Bluetooth as well, but many others out there are doing the same thing. Perhaps Espressif can fix their reliability issue with the new chip though.
Certainly there are other MCU players. But a bit above MCU's we have billions of Linux running embedded devices. Phones, tabs, TV's, all kind of things.
Got a chuckle out of that use of pit. Between poor spelling, incorrect wording, and erroneous facts it does seem apropos.
Do you mean the chips actually fail in large numbers, or that the RF link is unreliable in field use ?
Wifi here (Internet to PC/Tablets) seems to have a great many link issues, and poor up-times, but that is what you buy into with RF links.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2016/07/19/arm-arm-holdings-takeover-and-open-cpus/
RiscV is looking real good to me!!
It's one thing for China to steal IP and peddle it back to greedy Westerners but it's another to hand over your crown jewels.
As it is, it would be foolish for any corporation not to expect China to design back doors into any black box they sell us. As such I'd be looking at moving away from any ARM design that isn't completely known.
True, but they do mention open-source.
RISC V is still a work in progress, but certainly will gain more backing as a result of this sale.