Nvidia to buy SoftBank’s Arm chip division for $40 billion

Nvidia said Sunday it’s agreed to acquire SoftBank’s Arm chip division for $40 billion in cash and stock in one of the chip industry’s largest deals ever.As part of the deal, SoftBank will take an ownership stake in Nvidia that’s expected to be less than 10%, the companies said in a joint statement.

The news outlet reported last week that Nvidia and SoftBank were in advanced talks, with Nvidia the lone potential buyer. That followed an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal that SoftBank was considering a sale of Arm. The Journal also reported Saturday’s news of an imminent Nvidia-SoftBank agreement.

ARM isn’t as well-known as mega chip companies such as Qualcomm and Intel, but its work lies behind the processors inside many of the world’s mobile phones.

Arm licenses designs to companies like Qualcomm but also licenses its chip instruction set — the collection of commands software can use to control it — to companies like Apple that design their own. Arm’s designs are also used as the basis for chips made by Samsung and Nvidia.

SoftBank purchased the UK-based Arm in 2016 for $32 billion with the intent of bolstering its internet of things division.

This is a developing story