Arm to Cancel Qualcomm’s Chip Design License In 60 Days

After Qualcomm just revealed its new Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile chip that uses the same Oryon CPU cores as its Snapdragon X Series chips for Copilot+ PCs, Arm has just warned the company that it’s about to cancel its license to design these chips in 60 days. Bloomberg first reported today that Arm gave Qualcomm a 60-day notice of cancellation, and this is the latest episode in legal fight that started back in 2022.

Arm is a UK-based company that licenses its chip designs to Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, and other competitors in the mobile space. Back in 2022, Arm sued Qualcomm after the company completed its acquisition of Nuvia to create more powerful Arm-based chips for PCs. Arm accused Qualcomm of violating its licensing terms after transferring Nuvia licenses without Arm’s consent. Qualcomm later sued Arm in retaliation, and while the two companies are set to go to court in December, Arm is apparently trying to speed things up and force the maker of Snapdragon chips to pay more licensing fees.

If Arm decides to go forward and cancel Qualcomm’s chip design license in 60 days, the company will become unable to continue manufacturing its chips using Nuvia technology, including the new Snapdragon X series for Copilot+ PCs and the just-announced Snapdragon 8 Elite for smartphones. Arm will also require its longtime partner to get rid of any Arm-based technology developed before its acquisition of Nuvia back in 2021.

A Qualcomm spokesperson said that today that “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. 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.”