ARM and Qualcomm have still not settled their licensing dispute after almost two years. The fronts are so hardened that Qualcomm recently filed a countersuit against ARM and ARM wants to enforce a sales stop of all PCs with Snapdragon X processors.
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The reason is still Qualcomm’s takeover of the start-up Nuvia, which developed its own ARM core under the leadership of former Apple engineers from 2019. Nuvia actually wanted to use this core in server processors and acquired an ARM license for this purpose.
However, Qualcomm has repurposed this core as “Oryon” for the Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus PC processors and probably wants to use it in systems-on-chip (SoCs) for smartphones in the future. ARM argues that the existing licensing agreements do not cover the use of a custom core.
ARM calls for destruction of all Snapdragon X CPUs
In an August 2022 lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Delaware (case number 1:22-cv-01146), ARM stated: “Qualcomm induced Nuvia to violate its ARM licenses, which caused ARM to terminate those licenses, which in turn required Qualcomm and Nuvia to cease use and destruction of any ARM-based technology developed under those licenses.”
In one In a statement to Reuters, ARM insists on his point of view:
“ARM’s lawsuit against Qualcomm and Nuvia is about protecting the ARM ecosystem and the partners who rely on our intellectual property and innovative designs, and therefore about enforcing Qualcomm’s contractual obligation to destroy and stop using Nuvia’s designs derived from ARM technology.”
In plain language, this means that Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Lenovo, Samsung and other smaller manufacturers should destroy all notebooks or mini PCs with the Snapdragon-X CPUs.
This may be the reason why Microsoft reportedly prefers to work with Mediatek and Nvidia rather than Qualcomm in the future.
Qualcomm counters with countersuit
Qualcomm filed a countersuit against ARM on April 18, 2024, also in the U.S. District Court of Delaware (case number 1:24-cv-00490). In it, the company collects all allegations against ARM over the past few years. Some pearls from the complaint:
“In this context, ARM attempted to suppress Qualcomm’s technological advances in the development of CPUs by intentionally withholding from Qualcomm paid and due deliverables under the ARM Architecture License Agreement (ALA), misrepresenting the existence of those deliverables when Qualcomm notified ARM in writing that the deliverables had not been provided, and threatening to terminate Qualcomm’s licenses if Qualcomm attempted to enforce its contractual right to the deliverables in question.”
“Finally, ARM […] intentionally withheld benefits to which Qualcomm is entitled under its ALA with ARM, under the pretense that Qualcomm’s ALA is not entitled to support ‘Nuvia-based technology.’ ARM’s excuse is unjustified, and the violation could not be clearer.”
“ARM never resolved its delivery delay, causing Qualcomm to spend additional, unnecessary resources developing and testing its products.”
ARM is obviously trying to push through a new licensing model to generate more revenue. The main aim is to base the licensing costs on the price of the device rather than the price of the processor. According to Qualcomm, this involves a one-off payment of several hundred million US dollars plus ongoing, significantly higher licensing fees.
A troubled partnership
According to Reuters, the first day of the ARM vs. Qualcomm trial is not scheduled until December 2024. Anyone who wants to buy a PC with Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus has little to fear, at least in the immediate future. A temporary sales freeze seems unrealistic – rather, the threat is intended to increase the pressure on Qualcomm.
From an observer’s perspective, the whole situation seems absurd. For years, ARM wanted to get its CPU instruction set into notebooks and desktop PCs. Now, for the first time, a realistic opportunity has arisen and ARM is torpedoing it in order to get a bigger piece of the pie. Qualcomm is also the second largest provider of smartphone processors (after Mediatek), making it one of ARM’s most important partners.
Qualcomm, meanwhile, is dependent on ARM because the company cannot develop processors without the CPU instruction set. This would actually be the perfect breeding ground for a symbiosis, but it has gone seriously awry.
(mma)