Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen LL J for the clue delivery! According to news in the morning of September 1, Beijing time, Arm, a chip company owned by Softbank Corp. Group, announced on Wednesday local time that it had filed a lawsuit against Nuvia, a chip design company recently acquired by Qualcomm and Qualcomm, accusing it of violating licensing agreements and infringing registered trademarks.

Arm applied to the court for an injunction, hoping to force Qualcomm to destroy designs developed under a licensing agreement between Nuvia and Arm. Arm believes that the company must obtain permission to transfer these designs to Qualcomm.

Qualcomm bought Nuvia for $1.4 billion last year. The company said Arm had no right to interfere with Qualcomm or Nuvia innovation. Ann Chaplin, general counsel of Qualcomm, said: "Arm's lawsuit ignores the fact that Qualcomm has extensive and comprehensive authorizations to cover its customized CPU, and we believe these rights will be recognized."

If Arm's lawsuit succeeds, it would be tantamount to dismantling Qualcomm's largest strategic acquisition in recent years.

Although Arm is Qualcomm's most important technology partner, the lawsuit shows a major rift in the relationship between the two. Qualcomm has relied on Arm technology since it stopped designing its own custom computing core. But there have been differences between the two sides in recent years.

Some Qualcomm insiders privately complain that Arm's innovation is too slow, causing Qualcomm's chip performance to lag behind Apple's processors.

Qualcomm bought Nuvia, founded by a former Apple chip architect, to restart the computing core customization business, which is different from the standard Arm designs currently used by competitors such as TSMC.

One of Qualcomm's first goals after acquiring Nuvia technology is to challenge Intel and AMD in the PC and laptop markets. Qualcomm acquired Nuvia shortly after Apple replaced Intel processors with its own chips in Mac laptops. But Apple's processors are also based on Arm technology.

Apple's move boosted Mac sales, while Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Cristiano Amon said he hoped to use Nuvia's design based on Arm technology to achieve the same effect in the Windows notebook market. Since Qualcomm will still pay licensing fees to Arm based on chip sales using Arm technology, the move will not have a material impact on Arm's economic interests. However, under the agreement between Nuvia and Arm, licensing fees may be reduced.

Bob O'Donnell, an analyst at TECHnalysis Research, the market research firm, said the incident highlighted the two sides' dependence on each other.

"Qualcomm's opportunities in the PC and server markets ultimately depend on the design of Nuvia, and Nuvia is the main means for Arm to enter the Windows PC market. So these companies need friendly cooperation if they want to have a meaningful impact on the PC market." He said.

The deal is seen as a way for Qualcomm to reduce its dependence on Arm. In the past, most Qualcomm chips used computing cores licensed directly from Arm, while the core of Nuvia only used the underlying architecture of Arm, and then customized the design.

For Qualcomm, using a more customized core design, like Apple, could reduce the license fee paid to Arm in the short term. In the long run, it is also convenient for the company to adopt other structures.

People close to Arm said there was no dispute over Qualcomm's own license and that the case involved only technology developed under the Nuvia licensing agreement.

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