Did ARM cut off any new IP access from ARM China? Seems like a logical next step. And how is ARM China going to continue innovating? On their own?
Why not?
When I was young, the common wisdom was that Japan couldn't innovate, and once I saw an old bit of early 20th century analysis that said Germany couldn't either.
Both of those were wrong, why is China so different that it would be otherwise?
Yes. Thery may do badly, but this isn't going to be much of a problem for China for ages. They are unlikely to do that badly though - among 2 billion people there will be plenty of good people.
Their much bigger problem though is their lack of access to cutting edge semi-conductor manufacturing technology. I imagine they are on this though, probably through industrial espionage (invading Taiwan would help, but they will face similar issues for acccess to tech long term unless they also get access to ASML work I think).
The MIPS processor was copied for production in China (illicitly, until fully licensed), as was the DEC Alpha. There is significant processor design knowledge, and ample ability to copy any new designs produced by ARM-UK, even if they have to be scaled up to 14nm for domestic production.
Oddly enough, I learned recently that Russia prefers SPARC (known as Elbrus).
On the subject of VLIW, Sophie Wilson was talking up Firepath as late as 2020.
"In 1992 a spin-off company Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies (MCST) was created and continued development, using the "Elbrus" moniker as a brand for all computer systems developed by the company."
"Elbrus-90micro (1998–2010) is a computer line based on SPARC instruction set architecture (ISA) microprocessors."
Arm China is now AnMou Technology. They have "two wheels" strategy. ARM CPU architecture development for local customers and new Core Power architecture.
> There is an ongoing dispute between ARM and ARM China.
>
> But the accusations that ARM China had stolen ARM IP and was relaunching it under its own banner? Those don’t appear to be true.
[1] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/326617-arm-refutes-acc...
Technically Soft Bank still owns 49% of arm-china subsidiary, and they could theoretically take control back... but the belligerent CEO of arm-china has supposedly setup private security forces barring access to the facilities, and there is something about a legal seal. So far Soft Bank has opted not to escalate the situation any further. There is of course a lot more to the story.
for those not aware: seals are a big cultural thing in asian cultures (at least Japan and China for sure). I saw some surplus processors shipped from china with a stamp on them, I asked a Chinese friend about it thinking it was some kind of disposition mark (trying to make sure it didn't say "DEFECTIVE" or something ;) and she told me it was the seller's name, and that was his personal stamp, basically like his signature.
That got me looking into it and a signature is a pretty good analogy. In Japan at least it appears you need a seal to do any sort of serious transaction (buying a house, etc). The seals are officially registered and indeed basically like a signature, if you stamp a document that means it's "signed".
For a business, control of the seal is pretty much control of the business, I'm guessing. It's certainly going to be difficult to do any governing of the company without it, even if you otherwise have legal ownership of the company it's going to be difficult to exercise it without the seal.
Bit of an interesting cultural touchstone, seems minor to westerners but it's apparently a big deal to them.