Arm Holdings has reportedly cancelled Qualcomm’s licence to develop hardware based on its architecture.
While Qualcomm was busy revealing its latest Snapdragon CPUs at a company showcase in Maui, Arm escalated an ongoing dispute between the two companies over licensing terms by revoking its architectural licence.
Bloomberg reports that Arm issued Qualcomm a 60-day notice of termination, which would seriously damage the company’s attempt to ship hardware designed using the Arm-based architecture.
The dramatic move relates to a historic dispute between the two parties that dates back to 2019.
Gerard Williams, the renowned silicon engineer who designed processors used in Apple products, including the A7, the first 64-bit processor for mobile devices, left Qualcomm to form his own CPU design company, Nuvia.
Nuvia sought to build Arm-based server CPUs, only for Qualcomm to then acquire the startup in 2021 and the plans were dropped in favour of a mobile CPU, Qualcomm’s Oryon, which powers the new Snapdragon Elite 8, unveiled in Maui this week.
Arm then filed suit, contending that its licence was issued to Nuvia for a lower volume server-focused product, not mobile hardware that would find its way into millions of devices.
Having failed to re-negotiate licensing terms, the lawsuit is heading to trial later this year, only for Arm to pull the plug on the licence beforehand in a move that could have major repercussions for Qualcomm.
