Apple Inc. going to purchase ARM Holdings again?

    In April 2008, Apple Inc. bought PA Semi - see: "Apple buys PA Semi . " Although PA Semi was previously involved in the development of PowerPC CPU architecture, the new Apple division, formed of engineers from PA Semi, was engaged in the development of a new generation of ARM architecture processors - see: “Secret transaction between Apple, Samsung and Imagination” and “Apple chip development manager for the next generation iPhone ... " .

    In April 2010, it became known that Apple Inc. took over Intrinsity, a company engaged in the design of ARM architecture processors - see: Intrinsity Acquisition .
    And then, rumors spread around British media that Apple Inc. considering buying ARM Holdings - see: “Apple is considering buying ARM Holdings .
    Almost no one believed in this. And even the ARM leadership was forced to make a public statement, where ARM CEO Warren East said, “No one is buying our company” - see: “ARM refutes the rumors about negotiations to sell Apple .

    But in June 2010, already on the largest American media resources, a wave of messages swept again that Apple Inc. allegedly going to acquire ARM Holdings processor developer. Which, once again, immediately affected the value of shares in the ARM Holdings campaign - see:Will Apple Buy ARM Holdings?” (Source: Barrons.com , Forbes.com ) !?

    ARM Holdings is an association of enterprises engaged in the design and licensing of the ARM architecture of mobile processors used in almost every smartphone, PDA, and other mobile devices.
    Today ARM Holdings sold licenses for the production of processors with ARM architecture to dozens of manufacturers. And on this architecture, hundreds of millions (even some say about a billion) of processors are released per year, are the world's largest semiconductor companies, such as: Qualcomm, Broadcom, Freescale, Samsung, TI, Marvell, VIA, Nvidia.
    It is unlikely that Apple wants to directly kill all competitors whose products use ARM processors - as most likely, various antitrust authorities will not allow this.

    But if you study the history of ARM, it turns out that Apple is one of the founders of ARM Ltd. - see: “Apple can absorb ARM” :
    “Apple was one of the co-founders of ARM. In 1990, she joined forces with British PC maker Acorn and chip maker VLSI to launch a company to develop mobile processors for the PDA Newton Message Pad. After the discontinuation of Newton in the late 90s, Apple, then on the verge of survival, sold its shares in ARM to get more working capital. ”

    It is possible that today Apple has become rich and is trying to simply return its share of shares in ARM, which it previously owned as the founder and main investor of this company (perhaps Apple has some agreements for this - on the exclusive purchase of ARM shares).
    And the need for this apparently follows from the desire to influence the further development of the architecture of ARM processors as actively as possible, and to be able to independently change the core of ARM processors independently without paying attention to existing licensing restrictions!

    UP: In addition, it is worth recalling that Apple Inc. invested $ 5 million in a 3.6% stake in Imagination Technologies - see: “Intel, after Apple, buys a piece of“ imagination ””. So, that experience in investment cooperation and the acquisition of shares in technology companies from Apple Inc. already have :)

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