Ranking of the largest semiconductor industry acquisitions worldwide as of 2020

Nvidia announced on 13 September 2020 that the company had reached an agreement with SoftBank Group Corp (SBG) to purchase Arm Limited, in a transaction worth 40 billion U.S. dollars. While the deal still requires formal approval, it stands to be the largest semiconductor industry acquisition in history. Previously, Avago held the record with their 37 billion U.S. dollar acquisition of Broadcom.

Arm processor architecture

Arm, also recognized in the industry as ARM, is a semiconductor and software design company with its global HQ in Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The company is best known for its computer processor architecture. Arm develops the architecture and licenses it to other companies, who then use the design to create microcontrollers (MCUs), central processing units (CPUs), and SoCs. SBG acquired the company in 2016.

Apple’s partnership with Arm

Arm’s processor architecture is commonly found within modern-day smartphones. Examples include the Apple A13 Bionic chip, found in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, designed by Apple using Arm’s processor architecture. In addition to their smartphones, in 2020, Apple announced it will begin using Arm-based CPUs across its line of Mac PCs, a move away from their current partnership with Intel. The decision was made in order to standardize on one CPU architecture for all iPhone, iPad, and Mac products, with the transition to Apple's custom Arm-based chips expected to take place over a two-year period.