Arm, Qualcomm Legal Battle Might Disrupt ‘AI PCs’
Max A. Cherney:
The British company, which is majority-owned by Japan’s SoftBank
Group, opens new tab, sued Qualcomm in 2022 for failing to
negotiate a new license after it acquired a new company. The suit
revolves around technology that Qualcomm, a designer of mobile
chips, acquired from a business called Nuvia that was founded by
Apple chip engineers and which it purchased in 2021 for $1.4
billion.
Arm builds the intellectual property and designs that it sells to
companies such as Apple, opens new tab and Qualcomm, which they
use to make chips. Nuvia had plans to design server chips based on
Arm licenses, but after the acquisition closed, Qualcomm
reassigned its remaining team to develop a laptop processor, which
is now being used in Microsoft’s latest AI PC, called Copilot+.
Arm said the current design planned for Microsoft’s Copilot+
laptops is a direct technical descendant of Nuvia’s chip. Arm said
it had cancelled the license for these chips.
My initial reaction when I see reports of legal disputes like this is “Eh, they’ll settle.” But look at the Apple-Masimo dispute over blood oxygen sensors — that’s still dragging on as we head into summer.
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Max A. Cherney:
The British company, which is majority-owned by Japan’s SoftBank
Group, opens new tab, sued Qualcomm in 2022 for failing to
negotiate a new license after it acquired a new company. The suit
revolves around technology that Qualcomm, a designer of mobile
chips, acquired from a business called Nuvia that was founded by
Apple chip engineers and which it purchased in 2021 for $1.4
billion.
Arm builds the intellectual property and designs that it sells to
companies such as Apple, opens new tab and Qualcomm, which they
use to make chips. Nuvia had plans to design server chips based on
Arm licenses, but after the acquisition closed, Qualcomm
reassigned its remaining team to develop a laptop processor, which
is now being used in Microsoft’s latest AI PC, called Copilot+.
Arm said the current design planned for Microsoft’s Copilot+
laptops is a direct technical descendant of Nuvia’s chip. Arm said
it had cancelled the license for these chips.
My initial reaction when I see reports of legal disputes like this is “Eh, they’ll settle.” But look at the Apple-Masimo dispute over blood oxygen sensors — that’s still dragging on as we head into summer.