Qualcomm Argues Less Than 1% of Arm IP is Inside Nuvia Cores in Snapdragon X Chips
Days of Arm-Qualcomm legal disputes continue, and with new day we get new updates. Gerard Williams III, CEO and founder of Nuvia, also one of the main brains behind Qualcomm's Oryon cores inside Snapdragon X processors, testified before the court that the chip design contains minimal Arm IP despite using the company's instruction set architecture. Williams estimated that "one percent or less" of the final design originated from Arm's IP. Despite Qualcomm using Arm ISA license, the company has very little Arm IP in its SoCs. Most of the Snapdragon X design has been done within Qualcomm's labs, in addition to Nuvia. Williams, who co-founded Nuvia in 2019, explained that while their processors use Arm's Armv8 instruction set, the core design was largely developed from scratch. Nuvia initially secured two non-transferable licenses from Arm: a Technology License Agreement (TLA) and an Architecture License Agreement (ALA).
These agreements allowed the company to develop custom cores while implementing Arm's instruction set. The development team created their own proprietary microarchitecture, including custom data paths and cache systems, rather than using Arm's existing designs. The controversy erupted when Qualcomm acquired Nuvia and announced plans to use the cores in PC processors rather than the initially intended datacenter applications. Arm demanded a renegotiation of licensing terms following the acquisition, which Qualcomm refused, arguing that its existing ALA covered Nuvia's designs. The dispute escalated when Arm revoked Nuvia's licenses in 2022 and terminated Qualcomm's Architecture License Agreement this October. Arm is now seeking the destruction of all Nuvia designs developed before the merger, arguing that the licensing agreements couldn't be transferred through acquisition. Qualcomm builds a case on TLA not being violated since the designs are mostly custom, so we have to see how the ruling proceeds. Arm wants to "hurt" Qualcomm with ALA revoking, and perhaps the final case ends with a settlement, given that Qualcomm is one of Arm's biggest customers.
These agreements allowed the company to develop custom cores while implementing Arm's instruction set. The development team created their own proprietary microarchitecture, including custom data paths and cache systems, rather than using Arm's existing designs. The controversy erupted when Qualcomm acquired Nuvia and announced plans to use the cores in PC processors rather than the initially intended datacenter applications. Arm demanded a renegotiation of licensing terms following the acquisition, which Qualcomm refused, arguing that its existing ALA covered Nuvia's designs. The dispute escalated when Arm revoked Nuvia's licenses in 2022 and terminated Qualcomm's Architecture License Agreement this October. Arm is now seeking the destruction of all Nuvia designs developed before the merger, arguing that the licensing agreements couldn't be transferred through acquisition. Qualcomm builds a case on TLA not being violated since the designs are mostly custom, so we have to see how the ruling proceeds. Arm wants to "hurt" Qualcomm with ALA revoking, and perhaps the final case ends with a settlement, given that Qualcomm is one of Arm's biggest customers.
