Apple has signed a new deal with British chip design company Arm to license its chip technology that extends beyond 2040, reports Reuters.
News of the deal emerged in documents filed on Tuesday for Arm's initial public offering, which the company has priced at $52 billion.
"We have entered into a new long-term agreement with Apple that extends beyond 2040, continuing our longstanding relationship of collaboration with Apple and Apple's access to the Arm architecture," said Arm in the IPO document.
Arm's hardware underpins all of Apple's custom silicon processors such as the A15 in the iPhone 14 and the M2 in the MacBook Pro, since Apple licenses the Arm instruction set.
The document reveals that companies including Apple, AMD, Google, Intel, Nvidia, Samsung, and TSMC, have "indicated an interest" in buying "up to an aggregate" of $735 million in Arm shares. TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, has said it will decide this week whether to invest in the chip designer. By holding Arm's shares, chipmakers will hope to have sway over Arm's management.
Japan-based SoftBank has been preparing for an IPO since its plan to sell Arm to Nvidia became subject to regulatory scrutiny. California-based Nvidia in January 2022 abandoned the purchase when it became clear that the deal would be blocked by the FTC.
The relationship between Apple and Arm is one of the longest in the chip business – Apple was one of the first companies to partner with the firm when it was founded in 1990, prior to the release of Apple's Newton handheld computer, which used an Arm-based chip.
The Newton was a flop, but Arm wasn't. It went on to develop integrated circuit design data that is generally considered to be the "blueprint" for semiconductors. Arm licenses its chip designs to over 500 companies, and its architecture is used in 95 percent of the world's smartphones.
Top Rated Comments
Again a vital fact is missing. Apple was one of the founders with an equally large share of Arm as Acorn Computers and VLSI Technology, had the rest about 12%. A separate company was founded because Apple didn't want to buy a component directly from a competitor, which was Acorn Computers here. Apple provided funding and the first CEO of ARM was an Apple VP, Acorn provided the the designers and VLSI technology to the new company. Apple needed a better CPU than the one they were evaluating from AT&T for the Newton (the failed iPad predecessor with a stylus).
Apple later sold these shares when it became technically bankrupt and Microsoft helped them with cash injection. One of Bill Gates smartest investments.
Manufacturers moved away from them because they were always running.
68k (Motorola) -> PowerPC (IBM/Motorola) -> Intel -> ARM (Apple Silicon)