ARM Execution Thread [2022]

[Deleted member 2197]

Arm Sues Qualcomm and Nuvia for Breaking License Agreement (Updated)

Arm demands Qualcomm and Nuvia destroy chip designs developed after March, 2022.

www.tomshardware.com

Arm on Wednesday said it had filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm and Nuvia for breaching of license agreements with Arm as well as trademark infringement. The CPU architecture developer wants to destroy certain Nuvia designs as well as fair compensation for the usage of its trademark.

As it turns out, Qualcomm transferred Nuvia's Arm license to a newly formed entity after it purchased the company last March without Arm's consent, which Arm says is a standard restriction under Arm's license agreements. Since the companies could not come to terms, Arm terminated Nuvia's licenses in March, 2022. Instead of getting a new license, Nuvia continued to develop processors based on the Arm instruction set architecture, which is a breach of license agreements, according to Arm. Furthermore, since Nuvia and Qualcomm continued to use Arm's trademark when talking about Nuvia's upcoming processors, they also used it illegally.

"Because Qualcomm attempted to transfer Nuvia licenses without Arm's consent, which is a standard restriction under Arm's license agreements, Nuvia’s licenses terminated in March 2022," a statement by Arm reads. "Before and after that date, Arm made multiple good faith efforts to seek a resolution. In contrast, Qualcomm has breached the terms of the Arm license agreement by continuing development under the terminated licenses. Arm was left with no choice other than to bring this claim against Qualcomm and Nuvia to protect our IP, our business, and to ensure customers are able to access valid Arm-based products."

I think Arm mentioned before about reservations concerning Qualcomm's behavior, but pretty sure they will never consider any Qualcomm-led consortium plans to acquire Arm.

 

[Kaotik]

Arm Sues Qualcomm and Nuvia for Breaking License Agreement (Updated)

Arm demands Qualcomm and Nuvia destroy chip designs developed after March, 2022.

www.tomshardware.com

I think Arm mentioned before about reservations concerning Qualcomm's behavior, but pretty sure they will never consider any Qualcomm-led consortium plans to acquire Arm.

Did Qualcomm at some point drop their own architecture license that allowed custom designs?

 

[Zaphod]

Did Qualcomm at some point drop their own architecture license that allowed custom designs?

Doesn't sound like it from the language in the filing.

ARM's complaint is that the terms of Nuvia's license makes it void if the company is acquired, and as such Qualcomm can't use anything Nuvia had done before the acquisition. That Qualcomm either had to start from scratch or renegotiate the license. The first of which they expect discovery to prove Qualcomm didn't and the second they state Qualcomm was unwilling to do.

The filing doesn't disclose details, I assume the terms of every architecture license is different, and it almost sounds a bit salty - as if ARM feels cheated.

Pure conjecture follows: Like Nuvia went "We've been aquired, so we're not paying you anymore!", added Qualcomm "And our license terms says we're not paying you either!"

 

[Deleted member 2197]

 

[Jawed]

Arm Changes Business Model – OEM Partners Must Directly License From Arm

No More External GPU, NPU, or ISP’s Allowed In Arm-Based SOCs

www.semianalysis.com

Seems like ARM decided that what NVidia was probably doing to do is their right move now

 

[DavidGraham]

Seems like ARM decided that what NVidia was probably doing to do is their right move now

So they are denying any licensing to semiconductor companies (such as Qualcomm), only allowing OEM (device makers such as Samsung, Apple, ..etc) to directly license ARM technology, effective 2024 .. they are also blocking third party GPUs or NPUs or any other blocks to be added to their IP (so no more Adreno or PowerVR GPUs). Sounds like a retaliatory move to me.

NVIDIA got a 20 year license from ARM last year, so they are exempted from this, Apple too of course.

 

[Dampf]

Maybe the industry will move towards RISC-V now.

I wonder, when an application is written for the ARM architecture, can it easily run on a RISC-V based processor and vice versa? Since ARM is RISC as well, that should be the case right?

That would massively speed up its adaption I imagine.

 

[nutball]

I wonder, when an application is written for the ARM architecture, can it easily run on a RISC-V based processor and vice versa? Since ARM is RISC as well, that should be the case right?

Not really, no. RISC v non-RISC doesn't really matter very much.

It's all the other little architectural details (eg. memory model), plus the maturity of the development tools.