Manufacturers that make Arm chips license tech from British developer Arm Holdings, with the option of licensing Arm’s instruction set to build proprietary CPU designs or licensing one of Arm’s Cortex CPU designs. Amid a legal dispute that started two years ago over Qualcomm’s $1.4 billion acquisition of silicon design firm Nuvia, Arm has given its longtime partner Qualcomm a 60-day notice of its license cancellation. If the two companies do not come to an agreement in that time, Qualcomm will have to cease manufacturing Arm chips, which could have a significant impact on the global supply chain, Qualcomm’s revenue, and smartphone makers that use Qualcomm chips.

Arm “issued the notice as part of a protracted battle with the Snapdragon producer,” reports TechCrunch. “Much of the issue can be traced back to a dispute over contracts and trademarks that found Arm suing Qualcomm. Qualcomm returned with its own suit.”

“Qualcomm has been using Nuvia-developed technology in the chips designed for AI PCs, such as those from Microsoft and HP,” notes Engadget. “But Arm wants the company to stop using Nuvia-developed tech and to destroy any Arm-based technology developed prior to the acquisition.”

According to a Qualcomm spokesperson, Arm is using “more unfounded threats designed to strong-arm a longtime partner,” which “appears to be an attempt to disrupt the legal process, and its claim for termination is completely baseless.”

“Arm’s anticompetitive conduct will not be tolerated,” the spokesperson added, as reported by Bloomberg.

“Qualcomm sells hundreds of millions of processors annually — technology used in the majority of Android smartphones,” Bloomberg writes, “If the cancellation takes effect, the company might have to stop selling products that account for much of its roughly $39 billion in revenue, or face claims for massive damages.”

Related:
How Did Arm and Qualcomm’s ‘Symbiotic’ Partnership Go South?, Yahoo! Finance, 10/23/24
Qualcomm Shares Fall After Report of Arm Threat to Scrap Key License in Escalating Dispute, CNBC, 10/23/24