Apple and ARM have reached a deal for chip technology which will be effective for 2040 and beyond, ARM said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
This could potentially hint at Apple securing access to ARM architecture used in the US tech giant’s iPhone and Mac chips. The revelation comes just a few weeks before as ARM is geared to debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange with a total valuation of $52 billion. It is considered to be the biggest technology IPO this year.
“Further, 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,” Arm said in its updated SEC filing.
Arm’s architecture is widely used in smartphones with Apple’s A-series for iPhones being one example. Check out: AMD to Invest $400 Million in India, For a Design Center in Bengaluru
Arm outlines on how a central processor works at its basic level, as in how the arithmetic or access computer memory works.
ARM was founded in 1990 and only became a powerhouse after the iPhone became a phenomenon after its launch in 2007. Particularly, after smartphone OEMs needed chips that consumed less power compared to the x86 architecture used in PC by Intel and AMD.
So far, 250 billion chips have been dispatched using Arm’s architecture however, half of the company’s royalty revenue comes from products launched between 1990 and 2012, said the company in its filing.
Apple, Google, Nvidia, Samsung, Intel, AMD, etc. have shown their interest in Arm shares which would amount to $735. Arm has called these companies “cornerstone investors.”