Nvidia Corp is nearing a deal to acquire Softbank Group Corp’s chipmaker Arm Ltd, people familiar with the matter said, an acquisition that would extend its reach into mobile devices.
A transaction could be announced as soon as next week, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the details are not public.
The companies have been discussing a deal that would value Arm at about US$40 billion in cash and stock, two of the people said.
Photo: Reuters
No deal has yet been reached and talks might still fall apart, they said.
Bloomberg News on July 31 reported that Nvidia was in advanced talks to buy Arm and was the only suitor for the Cambridge, England-based company.
The Wall Street Journal on Saturday reported that a deal worth more than US$40 billion could be sealed early this week.
Representatives for Nvidia and Softbank declined to comment.
A deal for Arm could be the largest-ever in the semiconductor industry, which has been consolidating in the past few years, as companies seek to diversify and add scale.
Still, any agreement is likely to attract fierce regulatory scrutiny, and potential complaints from rivals of Arm, such as Samsung Electronics Co, Apple Inc, Qualcomm Inc, Broadcom Inc, Intel Corp and Huawei Technologies Co (華為), which license its designs or code for their own products.
Although Arm has carved out a successful niche for itself by being independent, an acquisition by Nvidia, also a licensee, would be a challenge to that neutrality.
Softbank’s purchase went ahead largely uncontested, because the Japanese company was not a competitor to any of Arm’s customers.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated