Arm Holdings May Cancel Qualcomm’s Chip Design License

• Arm, the popular chip designer that licenses chip designing architecture, has issued a 60-day license cancellation notice to Qualcomm.
• The dispute arose after Qualcomm's acquisition of Nuvia, ending with both companies suing each other.
• Qualcomm feels that Arm is doing this to disrupt the legal process right before the trial. Arm has yet to comment.

UK-based chip designer Arm Holdings (which licenses chip architecture) has reportedly issued a notice to Qualcomm, warning that the latter's chip designing license will be canceled within 60 days.

The news comes from a Bloomberg report published on Tuesday that claims to have seen the notice sent to Qualcomm.

The issue likely arose from Qualcomm's acquisition of Nuvia, another chipmaking company that was also a licensee of Arm. After the acquisition, Qualcomm used Nuvia's license to make custom chips based on Arm IP.

However, Arm argued that Nuvia's license does not directly transfer to Qualcomm after the acquisition. This led to a long dispute over contracts and trademarks, with Arm finally suing Qualcomm and the latter retaliating with a lawsuit of its own.

It's worth noting, though, that despite ongoing legal issues, Qualcomm has continued to use Nuvia's tech. For example, Qualcomm used it in developing the Oryon custom CPU cores, which were used in the Snapdragon Elite range of SoCs - these went in the Microsoft CoPilot PCs.

Plus, just this week, Qualcomm also announced that it will soon bring Oryon-powered SoCs to mobile devices.

So, there's a possibility Arm didn't like the fact that despite all of its efforts, Qualcomm is still making the best of Nuvia's tech, and hence decided to strike with the ultimate move.

Read more: Qualcomm to acquire Intel?

So What Happens Now?

The timing of this notice couldn't be worse for Qualcomm. It's right in the middle of the annual Snapdragon Summit, where it's busy showing off its latest innovations.

Given the amount of spotlight Qualcomm is under right now, it can be harder for it to appease investors and customers about the future of its products.

Plus, if Qualcomm really ends up losing its license, that will be the end of its latest Snapdragon range - unless it can find a replacement.

However, Qualcomm is confident that this won't happen. It feels that Arm is simply trying to disrupt the legal process right before the trial (which is set for December).

Qualcomm is of the opinion that the trial would go in its favor. It also called Arm's actions anticompetitive and its cancellation notice baseless.

A spokesperson responded on behalf of Qualcomm and said, This is more of the same from Arm - more unfounded threats designed to strongarm a longtime partner, interfere with our performance-leading CPUs, and increase royalty rates regardless of the broad rights under our architecture license."

Arm, however, hasn't made any further comments on the matter. Stay tuned for further developments.

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