Arm Plans to Cancel Qualcomm's License, Issues 60-Day Notice

[mikesg]

ARM seems to make a distinction in IP developed under Nuvia or Qualcomm.

[...]

Supposedly the Nuvia license contract is more favorable to licensee because it was for Server chips, which is a more limited market in addition to one that ARM doesn't have much market share in.

I think the issue is:
Were Nuvia's designs licensed to ARM for servers, so therefore how much % of the design can be used for non-server?
Or, was Nuvia's products in general licensed to ARM for servers,... therefore the same engineers and product can be used completely by another company?

No doubt Apple said to ARM. "Hey those Nuvia engineers left us, now they're giving away our design to Qualcomm. Stop them."

 

[Vincero]

I think the issue is:
Were Nuvia's designs licensed to ARM for servers, so therefore how much % of the design can be used for non-server?
Or, was Nuvia's products in general licensed to ARM for servers,... therefore the same engineers and product can be used completely by another company?

Well, I assume you mean licensed 'by' ARM, not 'to' ARM - ARM are the IP holder and have no practical interest (apart from royalties) in the finished products.

The problem there is does a license to use something to design a product / asset mean that the licensor has additional control over that product/asset in terms of future development and how it's used...? Without the contracts being made public that is hard to answer.
I'm not sure how enforcable the use of a general purpose CPU core being restricted to certain market segments actually is - if it's a soft limitation based on royalty payments, etc., then again I expect this to be settled.
To complicate that even more, the designs are (supposedly / by all accounts) NOT using ARM standard customer IP (i.e. not using Cortex-A/X) cores - the CPU core design is Nuvia/Qualcomm customised - so what say can ARM really have there...?

I sense there is likely an 'intent' in the contracts for ARM to maybe try to enforce this approach but I suspect there is enough ambiguity in the contract itself (i.e. this specific type of scenario regarding taking over someone else's IP and assimilating it) that Qualcomm think they can defend their position.

The summary version of ARM's claim is "that Qualcomm violated the license agreement by using designs from Nuvia without Arm's approval" - we have no idea what rights of ownership ARM has on those designs (which are legitimately now Qualcomm assets in terms of whatever ownership Nuvia had). If those designs utilise say some amount of the ARM Cortex IP blocks directly, then ARM possibly have a credible case in terms of some right of approval / ownership.

No doubt Apple said to ARM. "Hey those Nuvia engineers left us, now they're giving away our design to Qualcomm. Stop them."

Surely that's Apple's problem and if true they could pursue effectively themselves - and get the payout directly from any judgement rather than some latent gain.

 

[ThomasK]

Great move from ARM.

We should have less companies like Qualcomm.

 

[remixedcat]

could intel or AMD have a mole at ARM??

 

[ScaLibBDP]

This is clearly an attempt to "blackmail" Qualcomm.

I wish Qualcomm consider an option of porting as many as possible ARM-based IPs to RISC-V.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

This is clearly an attempt to "blackmail" Qualcomm.

I wish Qualcomm consider an option of porting as many as possible ARM-based IPs to RISC-V.

This is standard legal fuckery.

 

[Wirko]

To complicate that even more, the designs are (supposedly / by all accounts) NOT using ARM standard customer IP (i.e. not using Cortex-A/X) cores - the CPU core design is Nuvia/Qualcomm customised - so what say can ARM really have there...?

A lot. Arm sells "technology licenses" for individual core designs such as Cortex-X, and "architecture licenses" for instruction sets, for example, ARMv9. The latter are supposed to be by far the most expensive. Maybe because they are sold for a fixed sum, without royalties? I don't know.

 

[unwind-protect]

I always wondered why hardware companies would hang their existence on ARM's approval. Even if it's "30 cents per chip" somewhere there was a very large payment upfront initially.

It is not today's fees that are the issue. It is the uncertainty of what payments might be required in the future.

Even worse, future contracts on tech like this might restrict your business in some way.

I'm tell you, this affair means the end of a possible ARM dominance.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

It is not today's fees that are the issue. It is the uncertainty of what payments might be required in the future.

Even worse, future contracts on tech like this might restrict your business in some way.

I'm tell you, this affair means the end of a possible ARM dominance.

On to RISC-V! x86 sucks, and if ARM is having trouble RISC-V is up next for a chance.

 

[trsttte]

Looking forward to the car-owner chatter, wondering if their cars, or critical functions thereof, will be remotely turned off. Remember, so much of a modern car you do not own, you only license to use.

I don't understand the equivalency you're trying to draw. Even if Qualcomm looses, all the SoCs on the market with the infringing IP will continue to function just like before, Qualcomm will "simply" need to pay damages to ARM for each and every single one of them.

In terms of licensing things on a car, there are plans and management type morons trying to introduce such things but for now it only exists on very few things that can be justfied (i.e. live services). There are a miriad that are sold as options but can be enabled with a simple code variable but that always happened and that's it, it's active and done, no one will revoke it later.

GTFO!!!
Unless there is some sort of deferred agreement with the chip maker and device maker on who pays. What's next, charging Google extra if an Android builds adds support for a new ISA function?...

They were proposing that licensing model. I don't know if it went through but they wanted to receive a royaltee from say Google, Samsung, Motorola, etc. for each phone sold using a product that includes ARM licenses.

Basically Softbank trying to turn ARM into a money making machine after the nvidia sale went bust.

QC sue anyone & everyone they could over modems, including Intel & Apple IIRC?

To a point that's normal and Apple is notorious for being very dishonest and working with suppliers only until it's able to replicate the IP.

I wish Qualcomm consider an option of porting as many as possible ARM-based IPs to RISC-V.

They'd need to convice everyone else to make their software work on RISC-V and the performance is not really there yet for general purpose computing. But this behaviour from ARM is just another nail on it's coffin, everyone else is watching just like they were when the nvidia aquisition was looming.

 

[Assimilator]

Arm's contract with licensees will quite explicitly cover the case where one licensee purchases another, and almost certainly the required action there is "Arm must be notified and have the option to renegotiate the license terms." Qualcomm didn't do that with its 2021 acquisition of NUVIA because they thought they could save a buck, Arm has evidently been trying to get QC to comply with its responsibilities for 3+ years now, and it seems they've finally lost patience with QC's shit and are now making that very publicly known. Qualcomm literally has no option here, they either do what they should've done when they originally bought NUVIA or they don't get to sell and develop CPUs anymore. Stupid corporate bullshit just to try to save a license fee that is ultimately insignificant to the company's bottom line, and I guarantee that the legal wrangling will cost QC more in the end. I hate MBAs.

And for everyone saying that Arm is evil for trying to impose a per-CPU-sold license cost, being screwed over by licensees like QC is likely a big drive towards that, AKA "if you're gonna stiff us we're gonna stiff you".

 

[GenericUsername2001]

It seems to me that SoftBank is still mad at Qualcomm because they were one of the main blockers of the ARM-Nvidia deal. Probably Qualcomm would have to open the purse. MediaTek is loving this.

To add to that, the CEO of ARM, Rene Haas, is a former Nvidia employee. Plus there are all sorts of rumors floating around about MediaTek & Nvidia collaborating on an SoC, so both could benefit highly from this.

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

This is clearly an attempt to "blackmail" Qualcomm.

I wish Qualcomm consider an option of porting as many as possible ARM-based IPs to RISC-V.

Have you read about what a "nice" company is Qualcomm with their customers?
They have abused everyone with their modems patents.

About RISC-V, yeah..give it a decade to be anywhere near what ARM is today.

the aggressiveness of ARM will surely put other chipmakers on notice and likely cause a reimagining of their own long-term design strategies

Arm lives and dies by their IP and licensing deals, so what should they do when one of their licensees tries to play stupid and break the contract?

Apple pays less than 30 cents on a chip they make

In case that many are not aware, Apple was a founding member of Arm and only they know the deal they have, which is clearly beyond the fact of Apple owning and selling their stakes at the company.

I find it really funny how many are blindly defending poor Qualcomm against the abusive and evil Arm.

 

[xorbe]

I would love for RISC-V to displace ARM even if we took a performance hit for a while. If it gains traction, I'm sure some bogus IP lawsuits will materialize.

 

[unwind-protect]

Have you read about what a "nice" company is Qualcomm with their customers?
They have abused everyone with their modems patents.

This. It really couldn't have happened to nicer guys.

 

[Dwarden]

Qualcomm moving on RISC V en mass ?

 

[hsew]

Qualcomm moving on RISC V en mass ?

Interesting that Qualcomm and nVidia (and others too probably) have, within the past week, published statements bragging about the millions and billions of RISC-V cores they’ve sold.

 

[lemonadesoda]

In terms of licensing things on a car, there are plans and management type morons trying to introduce such things but for now it only exists on very few things that can be justfied (i.e. live services). There are a miriad that are sold as options but can be enabled with a simple code variable but that always happened and that's it, it's active and done, no one will revoke it later.

No - it is already being introduced - licensing pay-per-billing cycle for features, not just live services. For example. BMW indicator lights