Arm cancels Qualcomm’s chip design license

Manufacturer has 60 days before license is officially revoked

The long-standing partnership between Arm and Qualcomm is under threat.

Chip designer Arm and manufacturer Qualcomm have worked together for more than a decade, but that partnership seems to be over with the cancellation of Qualcomm’s license to produce Arm-based chip designs.

Bloomberg says Arm has officially given Qualcomm a 60-day notice of the cancellation; meanwhile, Qualcomm has accused Arm of “strong-arm” tactics designed to raise royalty rates for its IP.

Although the companies have a long-standing relationship, the last two years have been marred by legal disputes after Qualcomm acquired Nuvia in 2021.

As we wrote in June, when we covered Arm’s attempts to block the launch of Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs:

“Nuvia had an Arm license to produce processors for servers. After the acquisition Qualcomm turned Nuvia's focus to other projects, which eventually resulted in the Snapdragon X chip series that are used in Microsoft's new PCs.

“Arm cancelled Nuvia's license when Qualcomm changed the company's focus, and argues that doing so revoked Qualcomm's right to use the designs.

“Qualcomm, however, says its other Arm licences cover the designs used for Snapdragon X – and that Arm may not have been legally allowed to unilaterally terminate the licence in the first place.”

In a new statement, Qualcomm called Arm’s latest justification for cancelling its license “completely baseless.”

It added, "This is more of the same from Arm - more unfounded threats designed to strong-arm a longtime partner, interfere with our performance-leading CPUs, and increase royalty rates regardless of the broad rights under our architecture licence."

The patent fight between the two companies is due to go to trial in the USA in December.