Today, Qualcomm announced that it will acquire NUVIA for $ 1.4 billion – the acquisition of the start-up company, which consists of industry veterans who were originally behind the creation of Apple’s high-performance CPU core. The transaction has important implications for the future of Qualcomm in high-performance computers in the mobile as well as the laptop segment, with a possible entry into the server market.
NUVIA was originally founded in February 2019 and comes out of sleep mode in November of that year. The company was founded by industry veterans Gerard Williams III, John Bruno and Manu Gulati, with extensive industry experience at Google, Apple, Arm, Broadcom and AMD.
Gerard Williams III in particular has been the chief architect at Apple for more than a decade, as he was the chief architect of all Apple’s CPU designs right down to the Lightning core in the A13 – with the newer Apple A14 and Apple M1 Firestorm cores possibly also in the pipeline under his leadership.
NUVIA has been able to recruit a lot of leading talent in the industry and recruit various CPU design teams across the industry, and plans to enter the high performance computer and enterprise market with a new server SoC with a new CPU core called ‘Phoenix’. .
NUVIA has made particularly aggressive claims about how their design could significantly outperform the competition, as well as the raw performance as well as the effectiveness once it hits the market – usually such claims should always be viewed with skepticism, but because of the members of the design. Because they have proven their team and talent in the form of Apple’s very successful CPU microarchitectures, there is much more weight and credibility compared to other new ventures.
As a new venture in the industry, the company has always had an uphill battle against the established giants, so even though they could have talent and technology, there is no guarantee that they would be successful in the business. I admit that during the initial company announcement in 2019, I thought to myself that it would have been possible for the team to be acquired by another major player, which eventually happened.
Qualcomm’s profits and possibilities
Qualcomm’s $ 1.4 billion acquisition of the entire company can be seen as an endorsement of NUVIA’s talent and claims, and could mean a major shift in the industry, which could significantly increase the capabilities of the combined entities. compared to a separate entity.
From Qualcomm’s perspective, it’s a bittersweet deal following the failed Centriq business that suffered critical blows and cancellations in 2018 because the company had to save costs and lay off a significant number of people under its data center unit. . .
At the time, Qualcomm was still maintaining a custom CPU micro-architecture team for server SoCs, as they abandoned their efforts to customize CPUs for mobile devices a few years earlier, given Arm’s more effective and better PPA benefits (Performance, Power, Area) of Licensable Cortex. core. Eventually, the design teams struggled over the years and Qualcomm no longer had the ability to design custom CPU microarchitectures, and moreover, it has never been so competitive.
The acquisition of NUVIA by Qualcomm offers them the opportunity to take advantage of the early start-up work in the server space, which will potentially strengthen the company’s ambitions in the server space and give them a second chance in the market. It should be noted, however, that in today’s press release on the acquisition, there was no mention of server or business plans.
Furthermore, the move also has greater implications in consumer space, with Qualcomm claiming that NUVIA CPU designs are expected to be used in flagship mobile SoCs and next-generation laptops, as well as other industrial applications such as digital cabin and ADAS.
In essence, Qualcomm wants to use the NUVIA CPUs to replace Arm’s current Cortex CPU IP and gain a competitive advantage in terms of performance. This is an important point of the deal, as it means that Qualcomm is confident that NUVIA’s CPU design and roadmap will be competitive or exceed those of Arm’s offerings, giving the money and investment to these goals.
There are also two more aspects to Qualcomm’s consideration for the acquisition: With the announcement of Nvidia’s plans to announce Arm Holdings last September, it will give Qualcomm an important level of independence and security with regard to their future product cards. – only if Nvidia were to make significant changes. to the CPU IP licensing model.
Second, Apple’s recent move to drop x86 in favor of their own Apple-based Apple Silicon SoCs, which launches the new Apple M1 and plans to make a complete product transition in the next 2 years, has the Arm ecosystem significantly pushed. While Qualcomm has so far released a laptop-specific Snapdragon design, they still rely on Arm’s Cortex CPU IP and are currently unable to compete with Apple’s silicone. In essence, Qualcomm may see this as a major long-term competition in an effort to establish itself as the de facto Arm silicone supplier in this market segment, and alternative to Apple Silicon products. In the past, NUVIA noted that this could be a possible long-term goal beyond their focus on server space, but the acquisition by Qualcomm is now accelerating all such plans.
Press release:
SAN DIEGO, January 13, 2021 / PRNewswire / – Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire NUVIA for approximately $ 1.4 billion before working capital and other adjustments. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by the regulations under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Anti-Trust Act 1976 Act, as amended.
NUVIA consists of a proven world-class CPU and technology design team with leading expertise in high-performance processors, Systems on a Chip (SoC) and power management for computer-intensive devices and applications. The addition of NUVIA CPUs to the already leading mobile graphics processing unit (GPU), AI engine, DSP and dedicated multimedia accelerators from Qualcomm Technologies will further expand the leadership of Qualcomm Snapdragon platforms and make Snapdragon the preferred platform for the future of connected computers position. .
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NUVIA CPUs are expected to be integrated into Qualcomm Technologies’ broad portfolio of products, flagship smartphones, next-generation laptops and digital cabins, as well as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, augmented reality solutions and infrastructure networks.
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As part of the deal, the founders of NUVIA, Gerard Williams III, Manu Gulati and John Bruno, and their employees will join Qualcomm.
“CPU performance leadership is critical to defining and executing the next era of computer innovation,” said NUVIA CEO Gerard Williams. “The combination of NUVIA and Qualcomm will bring together the industry’s best engineering talent, technology and resources to create a new class of high – performance computing platforms that set the standard for our industry. We could not be more excited for the opportunities ahead. “
In essence, the acquisition of NUVIA Qualcomm’s future prospects in the market for mobile and consumer computers significantly increases, with possible long-term positive consequences for the competitiveness of the product. We look forward to seeing how it plays out next year.