Arm executives: After being acquired, NVIDIA will not have access to confidential customer information

Release Date:2020/10/05 Views:1631

Rene Haas, president of Arm’s intellectual property product division, a British chip design company, said that even if acquired by Nvidia, the company will continue to use a “firewall” to ensure that its new owner does not have access to the confidential information of Arm customers. , And will not be exposed to Arm’s product plans in advance.

Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm will reshape the global semiconductor industry because the latter has long played a neutral role, providing intellectual property licensing to Apple, Qualcomm and other chip companies. Nvidia promised to retain Arm’s business model of publicly authorizing the company’s technology in the entire chip industry. But because it takes years for a chip to change from an idea to an actual product, Arm customers often disclose information about future plans when discussing authorization with them.

Haas said: “We will maintain a confidential firewall between the two companies, and we will not let Nvidia enter in advance.” But Haas said that some information still needs to be communicated to Nvidia, such as if a major customer reveals that it plans to switch to Arm’s open source Competitor RISC-V, which will lead to a decline in sales, which may affect NVIDIA’s financial performance. Haas said the two companies are discussing “how to minimize access to this information.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Nvidia stated that the company will “ensure that the confidential information of Arm customers is adequately protected, as it has in the past.” (Little)