Two Great Tastes That May Not Go Great Together
Analog and digital chip companies have operated largely independently for years, but those boundaries are shifting, which may be opening up some major opportunities.
Analog and digital chip companies have operated largely independently for years, but those boundaries are shifting, which may be opening up some major opportunities.
RISC V chips may be seeing some progress with getting software optimized for it. We could end up in a world in which open source software runs on open source semis, while closed software, as in cars and mobile phones, runs on Arm.
Qualcomm claims Arm wants to shift its business model to charge OEMs rather than chip companies. We think is unlikely, but wow will it be hard if they do try to make that shift.
Arm is now a real force in the data center. With all of the “Super 7” running Arm CPUs, and the software industry increasingly recognizing the benefit of porting to Arm, we are at or approaching a significant tipping point in this massive market.
While Arm may be able to beat Qualcomm in court, their lawsuit risks creating a really challenging marketing message, especially at a time when the threat of RISC V looms ever larger. Maybe they win the legal battle, but lose the marketing war.
A recap of our emerging thesis on the changing nature of compute and what that means for semis companies large and small.
There seems to be some momentum for Arm to sell itself to some sort of consortium of major licensees. In theory, this could be a good outcome, but in practice would be very complex.
Nvidia’s Analyst Day demonstrated the company is now the leading force in the data center. They have risen to this crest on the back of some incredible execution, and their rise shows the very powerful wave washing through the market for compute semis。
RISV V’s leading proponent SiFive has some great momentum, but it also faces many obstacles 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.