The disclosure of a significant agreement between Arm and Apple has come to light through documents submitted for Arm’s upcoming initial public offering (IPO), valued at a substantial $52 billion. In the IPO filing, Arm announced a long-term partnership with Apple that extends well beyond the year 2040, emphasizing the continuation of their longstanding collaboration.
Everything you need to know about the Apple and Arm Partnership
This partnership is a result of Apple using Arm’s hardware as the basis for its own silicon processors, such as the M2 chip in the MacBook Pro and the A15 chip in the iPhone 14. Apple’s access to the Arm architecture is established through licensing the Arm instruction set.
According to the IPO papers, a number of well-known technological firms have expressed interest in purchasing Arm shares worth up to $735 million including Samsung, Apple, Nvidia, Google, AMD, Intel, and TSMC. TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, is expected to make a decision this week regarding its potential investment in Arm. These chipmakers seek to influence Arm’s management by holding their shares.
This development follows SoftBank’s preparations for Arm’s IPO, initiated after the planned sale of Arm to Nvidia faced regulatory obstacles and was ultimately abandoned by Nvidia in January 2022 due to anticipated objections from the FTC.
Apple and Arm have had one of the most durable relationships in the chip industry, extending back to Apple’s early work with Arm when it was created in 1990. This collaboration began before Apple’s Newton handheld computer, which used an Arm-based CPU.
Despite the failure of the Newton project, Arm prospered and became a key figure in integrated circuit design, basically serving as the “blueprint” for semiconductor development. Arm licenses its chip designs to over 500 firms, and its architecture is used in 95% of the world’s smartphones.
