Arm v. Qualcomm Looms Over Snapdragon X Launch

Microsoft and several PC makers are set to ship new Qualcomm Snapdragon X-based laptops next week, but a looming legal battle could spoil the celebration: Arm Holdings sued Qualcomm in 2022 for violating its licensing terms, and that lawsuit could result in a court order halting sales of those new laptops.

Suffice it to say that neither side in this legal dispute sees eye-to-eye.

“Arm’s claim against Qualcomm and Nuvia is about protecting the Arm ecosystem and partners who rely on our IP and innovative designs, and therefore enforcing Qualcomm’s contractual obligation to destroy and stop using the Nuvia designs that were derived from Arm technology,” an Arm statement notes of its position.

“Arm’s complaint ignores the fact that Qualcomm has broad, well-established license rights covering its custom-designed CPUs, and we are confident those rights will be affirmed,” Qualcomm noted at the time of the original lawsuit.

Reuters today reported that “legal experts” were split on which side would prevail. But it’s a strange fact that the two biggest partners in the world’s most important hardware ecosystem are in a heated legal battle that threatens to halt Arm’s advances into the PC market, an evolution that will benefit both Arm and Qualcomm.

At issue is the 2021 Qualcomm acquisition of Nuvia that led to the Snapdragon X series of chips for PCs: Arm argues that Qualcomm must pay it separate licensing fees for the Nuvia-based designs it’s now using, while Qualcomm feels that its existing licensing agreement with Arm covers that. In other words, this is only about money: Arm would like more in fees from Qualcomm while Qualcomm would like to keep the current fee structure.

Not helping matters, Reuters claims that Qualcomm has an exclusivity window with Microsoft for Arm-based PC chips, and that window is closing at the end of 2024. (To be fair, this reputed exclusivity window was allegedly ending in December 2023, according to previous reports.) And AMD and Nvidia are poised to offer their own Arm-based alternatives to Snapdragon X, presumably as soon as CES 2025 in January.

Qualcomm never comes up in a recent Financial Times interview with Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas, but the executive does note that there will be “other [Windows AI PC] systems coming out in the upcoming years,” confirming that other companies are working on Arm chips for PCs. He then delivers an implicit dig at Qualcomm.

“So, while the first-generation systems are going to be interesting, the second generation systems are going to be even more [so],” he claims. “And folks who bought the first ones are probably going to be a little bit green with envy when they see what the second ones look like.” In other words, don’t waste your time with a Snapdragon X-based laptop, future designed based on AMD or Nvidia Arm chips will be much better.

Great partnership there.