ARM escalates Qualcomm dispute with license threat

ARM is threatening to cancel the architectural license that underpins Qualcomm’s latest processors.

Qualcomm says ARM has issues a 60 day cancellation notice for its architectural license. The two companies are set to go to court in December over the acquisition of the ARM licenses for Nuvia as part of the acquisition in 2021. Qualcomm launched its Oryon core, based on the Nuvia design and license, in 2023.

• Qualcomm hits back over ARM lawsuit

“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,” said Qualcomm in a statement. “With a trial fast approaching in December, ARM’s desperate ploy appears to be an attempt to disrupt the legal process, and its claim for termination is completely baseless. We are confident that Qualcomm’s rights under its agreement with ARM will be affirmed. ARM’s anticompetitive conduct will not be tolerated.”

The dispute centres on the high performance Phoenix ARMv8.7 core developed by Nuvia under an architectural license with a sweetheart deal for startups. Qualcomm maintains that acquiring the company allow it to use the results of the license and is using the core in its 12 core Snapdragon X Elite chip for laptops. ARM disagrees and is calling for the destruction of the core design.