Apple has struck a deal with chip design company Arm that extends through 2040, Reuters reports. A disclosure noting the agreement appeared in new documents filed by Arm as part of its planned initial public offering.
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The statement about the deal doesn’t have many additional details. “We have entered into a new long-term agreement with Apple that extends beyond 2040, continuing our long-standing partnership with Apple and Apple’s access to the Arm architecture,” Arm said in the document. But given how heavily Apple relies on Arm’s designs for the custom chips that power its most popular and profitable products, including the iPhone, Mac, iPad, and Apple Watch, in addition to the upcoming Vision Pro, this signals that Apple plans to continue using Arm’s technology platform for a very long time.
It's not just Apple that has long-term interest in Arm. In its filing, Arm said that a number of major tech companies, including AMD, Google, Intel, Nvidia, Samsung , and TSMC, have "expressed interest" in buying Arm shares worth "up to a total" of $735 million.
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Arm's IPO follows Nvidia's failed attempt to buy it from parent SoftBank. That deal was announced in 2020 but was scrapped in 2022 due to "significant regulatory challenges," as it faced intense scrutiny from regulators in the UK, EU and US.
The deal revealed on Tuesday was not mentioned in Arm's previous IPO filing documents on August 21, meaning the deal was signed between then and September 5.
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source of information:theverge.com
