The Shrinking of Arm
Arm is cutting jobs in advance of its IPO – we think their reasons for these cuts are likely misplaced, and probably creates more problems for them in the years ahead.
Arm is cutting jobs in advance of its IPO – we think their reasons for these cuts are likely misplaced, and probably creates more problems for them in the years ahead.
At MWC Qualcomm made many announcements about wireless infrastructure – not their typical market. We think they are building a software ecosystem around their chips, to promote adoption of mmWave, and preparing the way for future products.
MWC is once again the venue for the global persuasion campaign between competing visions of the O-RAN project. The big swing factor this time around is the growing presence of hyperscalers, notably Microsoft Azure.
Qualcomm has a lot of buzzwords in their X70 press release – AI ! 5G ! – but the real significance of this news can be found in a single hyphen between Modem and RF.
Qualcomm put out 16 press releases ahead of MWC – lots of intriguing things going on – especially around their new RF+AI products and the company’s renewed interest in mobile infrastructure.
IoT is a catch all marketing team that has been bandied about for decades. There is really no such thing as IoT, but the number of connected devices is growing rapidly, and likely to accelerate as the cost of chips brings connectivity to many new areas.
Intel’s new direction appears to be as much tactical as strategic, propping up the business long enough to support a better valuation for a future split.
We believe, with increasing conviction, that the market for IoT chips is not going to go to Arm. But it is not going to go to x86 or Intel either. It is going to go RISC V.
Start-ups die from over-eating, not famine. It is amazing how quickly someone can spend $25 million.
The semis industry is more than just big companies selling chips to big companies. There is a wide network of distributors and value-added re-sellers in the middle, and the supply chain disruption has been pretty good to them.