Arm Holdings to reportedly cancel Qualcomm's chip design license

Arm Holdings is moving to play what could be legal chicken with Qualcomm in the coming months. The chip architecture firm has threatened to revoke Qualcomm’s licenses for Arm tech, which would keep Qualcomm from selling products with Arm-based chips inside them. That is, unless Qualcomm acquires a new license agreement with Arm over its acquisition of Nuvia, which uses chips that allegedly came from Arm’s technology.

The current ongoings of this case between Arm and Qualcomm were disclosed this week by a source familiar with the legal proceedings, as reported by Reuters. The UK firm originally filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm after the latter’s acquisition of CPU and tech design company Nuvia. Arm alleges that Qualcomm planned to sell Microsoft Copilot+ laptops with a chip that was licensed to Nuvia under a prior agreement and Qualcomm has failed to establish a new agreement following the acquisition.

Arm has been feuding with Qualcomm at least since 2022 when Qualcomm acquired Nuvia, which uses Arm technology in its chip designs, for use in new Microsoft laptops.
Source: Microsoft

For its part, Qualcomm’s spokespersons claim Arm is attempting to unfairly extort it under the circumstances and it feels it will be found within its right to use and sell the technology in its latest products.

It will remain to be seen, but if Arm goes through with canceling licenses to Qualcomm, it could have massive effects on sales of products for both parties. As we wait to see what happens, whether Qualcomm will sign a new license or be found to be within its rights, stay tuned for further updates here at Shacknews.