Apple and Arm Reach Agreement on Long-Term Chip Technology Partnership
Apple has signed a new chip technology deal with Arm that “extends beyond 2040,” according to the offer documents Arm filed on Tuesday.
Arm on Tuesday announced the pricing for what it hopes will be a $52 billion initial public offering, which would be the largest such deal in the U.S. this year. Arm’s owner, SoftBank Group, plans to offer 95.5 million American depositary shares of the U.K.-based company at a price of $47 to $51 each, Arm said in a filing.
Arm owns the intellectual property rights behind the computing architecture of most of the world’s smartphones, which it licenses to Apple and many others. Apple uses Armi’s technology to design its own custom chips for its iPhone, iPad and Mac computers.
Both companies have a long history – Apple was one of the first to establish the company in 1990, before its “Newton” handheld computer was released in 1993, which used an Arm-based processor chip. The Newton flopped, but Armi became dominant in mobile phone chips due to its low power consumption, which helps batteries last longer.
Apple was among several major technology companies that invested $735 million in Arm’s initial public offering on Tuesday. Reuters was the first to confirm last week that Apple was one of the strategic investors who agreed to buy the shares.
The deal announced Tuesday was not mentioned in Armi’s previous IPO filing, which was made public on August 21, meaning the deal was signed between then and September 5.
Arm declined to comment on its data, and Apple did not immediately return a request for comment.
