Apple Secures Long-Term Chip Technology Deal with Arm, as Revealed in Filing

In a significant development, Apple (AAPL.O) has recently inked a fresh agreement with Arm for chip technology, and the partnership is slated to extend well beyond the year 2040. This revelation emerged from Arm's initial public offering documents, which were filed on a Tuesday.

Arm, a company renowned for its intellectual property underlying the computing architecture utilized in the majority of the world's smartphones, disclosed pricing details for its impending initial public offering. The IPO, aiming to raise an impressive $52 billion, is poised to be the largest such deal in the United States for the current year.

SoftBank Group (9984.T), the parent company of Arm, intends to make available 95.5 million American depository shares of the UK-based firm, with each share valued between $47 and $51, as per Arm's official filing.

Apple has a longstanding association with Arm, dating back to the early days of Arm's inception in 1990. Apple was one of the initial founding partners, and this partnership predated the release of Apple's "Newton" handheld computer in 1993, which was powered by an Arm-based processor chip. Although the Newton faced commercial challenges, Arm subsequently ascended to a position of dominance in the realm of mobile phone chips, thanks to its energy-efficient architecture that prolonged battery life.

Apple, among other prominent technology companies, recently invested a collective sum of $735 million in Arm's IPO. It is worth noting that Reuters had previously reported Apple's involvement as one of the strategic investors who committed to purchasing Arm shares.

Interestingly, the newly disclosed deal between Apple and Arm, extending beyond 2040, was not mentioned in Arm's earlier IPO filing documents, which were publicly accessible as of August 21. This suggests that the agreement was finalized between that date and September 5, marking a significant development in their enduring partnership.