Qualcomm is still pretty fresh off of the unveiling of its Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile chipset. But it didn’t take long for the situation to turn dour, as Arm is reportedly terminating its architectural license with the chipmaker. This may affect the the possibility of the former’s chips to be used in in other products in the future, probably most notable among them being Android phones.
Bloomberg reports that Arm has given Qualcomm a 60-day notice of the license termination. Said license is what allows the latter to make chips based on instruction sets owned by Arm. Once the license is terminated, the report notes that the latter “might have to stop selling products that account for much of its roughly US$39 billion (~RM169 billion) in revenue, or face claims for massive damages”.
The report quotes a Qualcomm spokesperson who claims that Arm was trying to “strong-arm a longtime partner”, and that “we are confident that Qualcomm’s rights under its agreement with Arm will be affirmed”. Elsewhere, X user @anshelsag claims to have the full statement, with choice bits including the claim that Arm is trying to “increase royalty rates”, and that its “anticompetitive conduct will not be tolerated”.
This license termination may have stemmed from a legal dispute between the two, surrounding the former’s acquisition of Nuvia, another Arm licensee. Arm claims that the acquisition is a breach of Qualcomm’s license, and has demanded that Nuvia’s designs from before the acquisition be destroyed.
Also mentioned in the report is Arm shifting to “offering more complete designs – ones that companies can take directly to contract manufacturers”. This would allow others to compete with its customers, like Qualcomm, who license the instruction set to design their own chips. Meanwhile, the San Diego-based chipmaker has been moving away from designs by the Cambridge-based company, but not enough to break off completely yet.
For now, it remains to be seen what effect this will have on the mobile market. While Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips make up a large part of the pie, Arm is just about all-encompassing. with the former’s competitors such as MediaTek also make chips that are Arm-based.
(Source: Bloomberg, @anshelsag / X)
