One of the first moves Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon made on becoming CEO a year ago was to suggest his firm might buy a stake in processor IP leader ARM. If other ARM licensees followed suit, he argued this could keep the UK-based firm out of the hands of Nvidia, which had mounted a takeover bid. Nvidia’s plan to buy ARM from its Japanese owner, Softbank, fell apart in the face of opposition from multiple antitrust regulators, but Softbank still wants to address its own financial woes by offloading its crown jewel, with and IPO now mooted as the most likely option. The IPO route may be necessary because it will be hard to find another buyer like Softbank…