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Tensions between Qualcomm and Arm have been escalating in recent years, and the dispute has now reached a fever pitch. Arm is reportedly moving to cancel Qualcomm’s architecture license agreement (ALA), which empowers it to design the CPU cores that have made it one of the most valuable chipmakers in the world. If the firms cannot come to an understanding in 60 days, Qualcomm may be forced to stop shipping most of its products.
The dispute traces back three years to Qualcomm’s acquisition of Nuvia, which was designing custom Arm chips for servers. Nuvia had a Technology License Agreement (TLA) to modify Arm reference cores and an Architecture License Agreement to design custom Arm-compatible cores. When Arm granted Nuvia the licenses in 2019, it was with the stipulation that they could not be transferred to another entity.
Qualcomm purchased Nuvia in 2021 for $1.4 billion, giving it access to the company’s custom core designs. Arm considered this a transfer and canceled Nuvia’s license, telling Qualcomm it had to renegotiate a licensing deal, but Qualcomm felt its own ALA covered the Nuvia subsidiary. Arm sued Qualcomm in 2022, and that case is still ongoing. Still, the firm wasted no time putting Nuvia to use—the Nuvia Phoenix CPU became the basis for the Oryon CPU core at the heart of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon 8 Elite chips.
Qualcomm has seen great success with Oryon so far. The Snapdragon X Elite is the first Arm-based laptop chip that can run a Windows PC without making you yearn for x86, and the revamped Oryon for mobile is shaping up to be screaming fast. Qualcomm may not be able to continue producing these designs, though. According to Bloomberg, Arm has given Qualcomm 60 days’ notice that its Arm licenses will be revoked. This move would cripple Qualcomm, which earns most of its $39 billion annual revenue from chips covered by Arm licensing agreements.
The just-announced Snapdragon 8 Elite brings Oryon cores to mobile.
Credit: Qualcomm
Arm is demanding that Qualcomm destroy all Nuvia designs created before the acquisition—it claims its license with Nuvia strictly forbids the transfer of Arm-based technology without permission. The latest escalation comes in advance of the trial, which is set to begin on Dec. 16. Qualcomm tells Bloomberg it believes this move is an attempt to “disrupt the legal process, and its claim for termination is completely baseless.”
Threatening to cut off Qualcomm’s access to vital technology may be aimed at forcing it to the bargaining table, and it might work. PC makers like HP, Dell, and Microsoft have committed to building Copilot+ PCs based on Snapdragon. With Windows on Arm finally becoming usable, these firms won’t want to see progress grind to a halt because of a legal dispute. So, there will likely be substantial pressure for the parties to reach an agreement.