Re:Nvidia is reportedly in ‘advanced talks’ to buy ARM for m...
by skissane on Saturday August 01, 2020 @12:23AM
(#24017586)
> This is particularly true for Android because basically the entire thing is written in portable languages and the apps even run on a bytecode VM already, so switching to another architecture or even supporting multiple architectures at the same time wouldn't be that hard.
Google could easily afford to design their own RISC-V CPUs and port Android to it, if they thought it was in their strategic interests to do so.
I think it really depends on how nVidia-owned Arm behaves. If it behaves the same as Softbank-owned Arm, I don't think Google would bother. If it starts to behave differently, in a way which upsets the Android ecosystem, Google might do something like this. (I imagine they'll give it some time to see whether Arm's behaviour changes post-acquisition.)
Google could easily afford to design their own RISC-V CPUs and port Android to it, if they thought it was in their strategic interests to do so.
I think it really depends on how nVidia-owned Arm behaves. If it behaves the same as Softbank-owned Arm, I don't think Google would bother. If it starts to behave differently, in a way which upsets the Android ecosystem, Google might do something like this. (I imagine they'll give it some time to see whether Arm's behaviour changes post-acquisition.)