14 ms·

Arm says it wants all Snapdragon X Elite laptops destroyed

194 points by sharpshadow 2y ago

coob 2y ago
Wow this some pretty biased reporting. No attempt to assess whether or no Qualcomm have actually breached their contractual license with ARM
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  What's the bias? In whose favour?
  - InTheArena 2y ago
    Qualcomm / Nuvia.
    - _flux 2y ago
      In which way is the article biased for them?
- luag 2y ago
  It does, under 'It's all about licensing' section.
- _flux 2y ago
  > Arm's argument is that the Nuvia license was canceled when it was taken over by Qualcomm. How could the reporter possibly know one way or another, certainly it depends on the contents of that contract? Has anyone outside these three parties (Qualcomm, Arm, Nuvia) have seen the contract in question? To me the reporting seemed quite unbiased.
  - KingOfCoders 2y ago
    On top of that, only a court can decide about a breach of contract in the end.
  - rickdeckard 2y ago
    Well, the terms of the contract are outlined in the respective lawsuit between ARM and Qualcomm: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualcomm-99-9999-stamped-complaint.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualco...
    - yencabulator 2y ago
      That document says what ARM lawyers want it to say, not what is true and lawful.
      - rickdeckard 2y ago
        Yeah, equally there is a document that says what Qualcomm's lawyers want it to say. Sorting through both and providing a summary is part of "journalism". Here's one from Qualcomm: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.79892/gov.uscourts.ded.79892.15.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.798... And a quote from it, where Qualcomm states that it has the rights to use the IP from Nuvia because it has a ARM-license covering the same IP as Nuvia's ARM-license: "3. Qualcomm has its own license agreements with ARM, under which Qualcomm has licensed and paid for the same intellectual property that NUVIA licensed under its own separate agreements with ARM. Therefore, even though ARM terminated the NUVIA licenses, Qualcomm owns independent licenses for the same ARM technology and information" - To this statement of ARM: "Upon termination, the Nuvia ALA requires Nuvia to cease using and destroy any technology developed under the Nuvia ALA, as well as cease using Arm’s trademarks in connection with any technology developed under the Nuvia ALA" The response of Qualcomm is this: "4. The notion that ARM has the right to control technology that is not ARM’s—and worse yet, to ask Defendants to destroy their innovation and inventions unless substantial monetary tribute is paid to ARM—offends customary norms of technology ownership, as well as NUVIA’s and Qualcomm’s rights under their agreements with ARM." and this: "7. ARM’s position is a threat to the industry generally. Unless this Court rejects ARM’s arguments, ARM’s extreme position could be weaponized against all of its licensees, allowing ARM to claim ownership over all its licensees’ innovations." - So, as an amateur reading through the case, there is sufficient information to conclude that ARM has a contract that limits the use of Nuvia IP to Nuvia alone, and Qualcomm tries to argue that these terms are "offending" and "a threat to the industry". --> So, there is obviously no disagreement that these crucial terms are in fact part of the ARM/Nuvia License contract.
- jojobas 2y ago
  It will take dozens of lawyers (at least three opinions between any two of them) many months and millions of dollars to figure it out, and you want the journalists to make a call? The article sums up rough positions of both parties well enough.
- josephcsible 2y ago
  Even if they did, I'd still object to requiring useful products to be turned into e-waste.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  Why would you want some blogger to draw conclusions of law?
lucianbr 2y ago
> Arm's argument is that the Nuvia license was canceled when it was taken over by Qualcomm. This is like a windows (or anything else) license for a private person, that you cannot resell or give to anyone else. I'm curious whether these shenanigans will stand up between corporations as well. Bad way of doing business, in any case.
- InTheArena 2y ago
  It’s very common for corporations to include successor clauses in contract, to give strategic partners an opportunity to relicense sweetheart deals that they might have given plucky startups *like Nuvia). My suspicion is that it’s going to be very straightforward for ARM to document what successor clauses are in place. I suspect we are going to find out that there is one, and Qualcomm don’t care. Qualcomm is more lawyer company with engineers these days - they even made apple back down on licensing.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Havoc 2y ago
  Qualcomm has their own license too. ie in addition to the Nuvia one
  - rickdeckard 2y ago
    Qualcomm's license doesn't cover the IP Nuvia created with their license, and Nuvia's license (and everything created under it) became void when Qualcomm acquired the company. Source: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualcomm-99-9999-stamped-complaint.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualco...
    - Brian_K_White 2y ago
      So says ARM. Qualcom says otherwise. We don't know who is right with only public info to go on. It all depends on what exactly Qualcoms contract says. Obviously Qualcom has fully educated and competent lawyers who have read their own contracts in detail, and concluded they are good to go. So it's not a given that ARMs assertion is the only valid and winning assertion. It's merely what they want. Maybe they have a right to what they want, maybe they don't.
chad1n 2y ago
Unless the contract made with Nuvia states explicitly that a successor has to resign a new agreement, I doubt that Arm has any chance to win in the court.
- masklinn 2y ago
  According to the original complaint, both Nuvia’s IP and licenses were only transferable with ARM’s agreement.
  - vetinari 2y ago
    That doesn't matter; ARM's argument is, that the Nuvia IP is bound to Nuvia's license and cannot be used with a different license (which Qualcomm has, without limitation to server).
    - bluGill 2y ago
      License terms like this change all the time. The real question is why ARM isn't offering reasonable terms to allow this - or are/did they and it was rejected?
      - ac29 2y ago
        Probably a negotiating tactic. ARM is starting out by asking for something extreme (halting Elite X sales and destroying Nuvia's IP), when what they really want is for Qualcomm to renegotiate a new license for the IP with more money going to ARM.
    - afiori 2y ago
      I believe that Arm's argument is more in the other direction, that is that Qualcomm license does not cover IP developed by Nuvia.
      - masklinn 2y ago
        It’s both, and more: - Qualcomm’s license doesn’t provide for using third-party developments - Nuvia’s license doesn’t allow using it on other platforms than servers - Nuvia’s derived IP is not transferable without ARM agreement
omneity 2y ago
The reporting on this article is just bad. The issue is not Qualcomm taking over Nuvia's business and license. According to Arm the Nuvia license is contractually tied to server/datacenter usage, while Qualcomm's acquisition of Nuvia packaged these server cores into "Oryon" for PC use in the Snapdragon X Elite SoC and intends to use them in smartphones too, breaching the original agreement. Here's a better source: https://www.heise.de/en/news/ARM-torpedoes-Windows-on-ARM-Demands-destruction-of-all-PCs-with-Snapdragon-X-9758434.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/ARM-torpedoes-Windows-on-ARM-De...
- dvdkon 2y ago
  Do you have a source not behind a "cookie wall"? I remember Qualcomm making phone SoCs with custom cores some years back. Why is it suddenly an issue now? Or were those just rebrands of tweaked Cortex designs? EDIT: From reading the Reuters article [0] it seems that Arm's argument is that since Nuvia's cores were developed under a now-terminated licence, Qualcomm doesn't have a right to use them, their other licences notwithstanding. [0]: https://www.usnews.com/news/technology/articles/2024-06-10/analysis-arm-qualcomm-legal-battle-seen-disrupting-ai-powered-pc-wave https://www.usnews.com/news/technology/articles/2024-06-10/a...
  - jraph 2y ago
    (The page displays fine with js disabled)
  - bpfrh 2y ago
    The argument is that Nuvia got a licence for server usage and development support from arm to develop custom arm processors. Qualcom now wants to use technology developt under a specific licence agreement in use cases not covered in that licence agreement, because they have general licence agreement with arm. The question is: Does the general licence agreement from qualcom override the specific licence agreement between Nuvia and arm for this specific technology. I found some sources which partially explains this: https://www.ft.com/content/5535ce39-ab22-497a-a8d6-52a690d1b446 https://www.ft.com/content/5535ce39-ab22-497a-a8d6-52a690d1b... https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/01/why-arms-lawsuit-against-qualcomm-is-a-big-deal.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/01/why-arms-lawsuit-against-qua... (...Nuvia, a startup founded by former Apple and Google engineers, was developing a server chip with custom cores under an architecture license. It also had access to Arm’s core designs....)
sterlind 2y ago
Why does Qualcomm need a license to design a custom ARM chip in the first place? Assuming they're not reusing or deriving from licensed IP blocks, and that they just cracked open a reference book and implemented the instruction set from scratch. Does ARM hold a copyright on the instruction set itself? Can you even copyright an instruction set? Or is it a bunch of patents?
- fredgrott 2y ago
  arm licenses the design of the cpu, etc. including any patents
- immibis 2y ago
  Is it custom?
- dvdkon 2y ago
  ISAs are "protected" (read: monopolised) using patents IIRC.
  - kragen 2y ago
    thumb-2 is from 02002 and should therefore be off patent, but presumably this is arm64
- rickdeckard 2y ago
  "Snapdragon X Elite" is based on the IP Qualcomm gained from the Acquisition of Nuvia, who developed this IP based on a very narrow license they got from ARM to develop for the server market. Qualcomm is trying to transfer everything Nuvia has developed under that specific narrow ARM-license to the broad license of Qualcomm and use it for "powering flagship smartphones, next-generation laptops, and digital cockpits, as well as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, extended reality and infrastructure networking solutions" ARM has filed a lawsuit that this was never in scope of the license of Nuvia, the court-ruling is still pending on that one...
  - foxandmouse 2y ago
mensetmanusman 2y ago
I’m kind of terrified of a fast windows experience where pushing the start menu button immediately brings up advertisements in the blink of an eye. At least in the past if I was fast enough it would fail to load in time.
- blahgeek 2y ago
  On the bright side, it can also automatically apply updates and reboot in the blink of an eye, so all you perceives is that every app windows disappear. :)
- whalesalad 2y ago
  Login screen ads will have such low latency you’ll be able to see home mortgage loan prices live in the quicken loans ad
- yellow_lead 2y ago
  Don't worry, Microsoft excels at absorbing hardware improvements as bloat in their software.
  - stanac 2y ago
    From wikipedia: > Wirth's law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. > "The hope is that the progress in hardware will cure all software ills. However, a critical observer may observe that software manages to outgrow hardware in size and sluggishness." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law
  - lbruder 2y ago
    What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away.
- cosmojg 2y ago
  You could always try running Linux instead.
dvdkon 2y ago
It looks like ARM is hell-bent on making the case for RISC-V, or maybe even on getting someone to challenge their ISA patents in court (if Qualcomm's new chips are custom designs). Here's hoping this kind of greed won't pay off.
- masklinn 2y ago
  According to ARM’s complaint, they gave Nuvia exclusive licensing rights and IP access for specific purpose. Rather than work with arm to negotiate their own deal (or even access Nuvia’s derived IP in good faith) Qualcomm: - tried to discretely transfer the licenses to a brand new entity - worked directly with Nuvia’s cores, which Qualcomm’s own license did not permit - kept at it after nuvia’s own license was terminated - kept using the Arm trademark in their copy despite that also being linked to the licensing agreement So from ARM’s point of view, Qualcomm are the greedy ones, and lazy to boot.
  - dvdkon 2y ago
    It seems weird to me to buy a company and then have to licence the company's own IP from a third party (AFAIK Qualcomm has an ARM ISA licence). Maybe Nuvia signed away exclusive rights to Arm, but at that point they'd be basically working for someone else's benefit. Or maybe the cores aren't as custom as Qualcomm is telling us, and they contain some separately-licenced Arm tech.
    - bpfrh 2y ago
      I don't think it is weird. Imagine you buy a non profit which has a special windows licence and then you use that licence for all your for profit windows devices, I don't think that that would be possible. AFAIK ARM gave Nuvia a licence to use their ip (and access to their IP) for a specific market. imho Qualcom has the right to use the nuvia ip as laid out in the licence agreement, but not for markets where no licence exists e.g. laptops. Edit: removed some nonsensical text
      - dvdkon 2y ago
CodeArtisan 2y ago
Arm Ltd. v. Qualcomm Inc. (1:22-cv-01146) https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/gov.uscourts.ded_.79892.1.0.pdf https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/gov.u... From the complaint: 22. (Page 6) [...] The licenses safeguarded Arm’s rights and expectations by prohibiting assignment without Arm’s consent, regardless of whether a contemplated assignee had its own Arm licenses. 39. (Page 12) On February 1, 2022, Arm sent a letter to Nuvia and Qualcomm terminating the Nuvia licenses effective March 1, 2022. The letter terminated the licenses based on Nuvia’s material breach of the assignment provisions of the Nuvia licenses by entering into the acquisition of Nuvia without Arm’s consent. 42. (Page 12) On April 1, 2022, Qualcomm’s General Counsel sent Arm a letter enclosing a Nuvia representative’s termination certification. The certification acknowledged—without objection—that the Nuvia licenses had been terminated. The certification recognized the obligations upon termination, and asserted that Nuvia was in compliance. Qualcomm and Nuvia thereby conceded that termination of the Nuvia licenses was appropriate, and that the termination provisions had been triggered, are binding, and are enforceable. 47. (Page 14) Qualcomm’s Arm licenses do not cover products based on or incorporating Arm-based technologies developed by third parties under different Arm licenses 62. (Page 17) Upon termination, the Nuvia ALA requires Nuvia to cease using and destroy any technology developed under the Nuvia ALA, as well as cease using Arm’s trademarks in connection with any technology developed under the Nuvia ALA.
dtx1 2y ago
>So, there you have it. Arm wants Qualcomm to stop shipping the product it's been contesting, but to be honest, that's not usually how these things end. It's unlikely that any product will be delayed from hitting shelves. These cases tend to end with one company giving a bucket of cash to the other, and everyone moves on. Yeah, basically this. Though it seems rather risky of Qualcomm to essentially byte the hand that feeds them. If I was ARM, I'd consider not extending any licenses given to Qualcomm this.
- afiori 2y ago
  I believe that Qualcomm, like Apple has a perpetual license that could be hard for Arm to terminate
sergius 2y ago
Does this make Risk V more attractive?
- delfinom 2y ago
  It's why Qualcomm is investing into RISC V because ARM is trying to burn the house down on many fronts. https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2023/08/leading-semiconductor-industry-players-join-forces-to-accelerate https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2023/08/leading-semic...
- rwmj 2y ago
  It's a really dumb move from Arm, regardless of what the actual contracts say.
  - ffgjgf1 2y ago
    Not necessarily, they aren’t making much money from this. They really just want to negotiate a better deal not to prevent Qualcomm from building their own cores..
Taniwha 2y ago
Who wants to bet that Qualcom is spinning a RISC-V version as fast as it can - this after all is why open source ISAs are a good thing
- rwmj 2y ago
  They've been very active in RISC-V technical groups recently. What exactly that means - whether they are serious about developing cores, or just want an insurance policy with leverage to use against Arm - isn't clear. Personally I hope we do get a "Snapdragon V" one day.
- lobochrome 2y ago
  I’ll take that
- sloowm 2y ago
  I don't think Qualcomm or any of the current market leaders will be the first to do a big RISC-V push. While dealing with the ARM company might be a hassle having an exclusive ISA limits the competition which is good for business. When the first one moves and the software is created for it there are more opportunities for competitors. Qualcomm doesn't want to create the invitation but also wants to make sure there is a place at the party for them. RISC-V will probably get it's first big adoption through some new or shifting industry creating their own chip. Like how ARM got into phones or Amazon started to use their own ARM chips. This guarantees all the infrastructure can be build and used in the future.
- wildzzz 2y ago
  It's nice having an open ISA but companies go with ARM because the cores are already developed. There are RISC-V cores available for purchase too but they aren't up to the same level of performance yet.
  - snvzz 2y ago
    SiFive announced P870[0] last October[1]. It competes with ARM's absolute best. Ventana Veyron V2 and Tenstorrent Ascalon/Alastor are other already announced, highly competitive, very high performance microarchitectures. The high performance chips are coming. RISC-V is inevitable. 0. https://www.sifive.com/cores/performance-p870-p870a https://www.sifive.com/cores/performance-p870-p870a 1. https://www.sifive.com/press/sifive-announces-differentiated-solutions-for-generative https://www.sifive.com/press/sifive-announces-differentiated...
notorandit 2y ago
I for one am just waiting for RISC-V to take over.
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  Qualcomm would just probably develop their own proprietary cores with patented/proprietary extensions (because why wouldn’t they?). Crippling the ability of other RISC-v chips to run the software built primarily Qualcomm CPUs. Now at least there is ARM keeping them somewhat in check..
  - hammyhavoc 2y ago
    Cheap and open is going to win in this situation, even if what you described happens. Nobody wants to pay the piper in terms of licensing fees.
rowanG077 2y ago
To me this seems a real bad move by arm. They are showcasing to all their customers why they need to get of arm asap.
- bluGill 2y ago
  Unless ARM can show they are offering reasonable terms to make this legal. I know of other cases (I'm under NDA so don't ask for details) where a company has decided to switch course and the new one wasn't allowed under the old contract, but the contract was renegotiated to allow the switch.
soundnote 2y ago
So this is why the LTT video on Snapdragon X had Arm blurred out XD
anoncow 2y ago
It is time to destroy ARM
BirAdam 2y ago
ARM has had a series of issues, but it has continued to do well despite all of them. The thing is, they’ve been doing well because of license holders. That’s their business. If they keep treating their customers poorly, they will lose. RISC-V, MIPS, and OpenPower are all available. This is especially poignant when we remember that ARM is currently valuable for its performance per watt, and not for its raw performance capability. As x86 gets better at efficiency, and as RISC-V gets better at raw performance, ARM’s entire market fit shrinks. Their best move would be to become more lenient in licensing terms, not less. Edit, I was thinking market share when I said “do well” but ffgjgf1 pointed out that they’ve not been doing well financially. That’s an excellent point and likely explains some of ARM’s behavior. The problem is, alienating your license holders will only make the financials worse…
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  > but it has continued to do well despite all of them Financially they haven’t really been doing that well, especially no compared to other chip designers, they are basically making peanuts.
  - BirAdam 2y ago
    I was thinking more in terms of market share, but you raise an excellent point.
fingerlocks 2y ago
dupe with 90 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655516
nottorp 2y ago
Arm was cuter when they were the underdog. Are Risc-V designs unencumbered, or there's still some IP holder that could sue you when the money pot grows big enough to make it worth it?
- wildzzz 2y ago
  If you are just using the RISC-V core alongside cores you've developed yourself or have licenses for, you're set. RISC-V ISA is provided. It has a very permissive, royalty-free license but you will need to become a paid member to use their trademark. I suppose they could change their license model at some point and attempt to revoke existing licenses but that would be suicide for them. Just like with all standards, there is always an IP holder but it's all a matter of how that IP is licensed out to users and the association that user can display with the IP holder. For example, you can sell a device with a Raspberry Pi inside but you can't use the HDMI trademark on your marketing materials without being a member of the HDMI Foundation.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    > I suppose they could change their license model at some point and attempt to revoke existing licenses but that would be suicide for them. ... now. How about when it gets popular and too much resources have been poured into them? Like arm...
- philistine 2y ago
  Do not blame ARM's terrible attempts at ever more rent-seeking to their leadership position. Blame it on their incredibly boneheaded ownership history. SoftBank paid way too much for ARM, and now they have to try and make the money back somehow.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    What, Japan doesn't have bankruptcy?
  - SK777 2y ago
    SoftBank paid $32 billion for ARM and now it's worth over $165 billion. They paid too much? Really?
shrubble 2y ago
I am almost tempted to buy one ASAP, in case ARM is successful; it would be an instant collectible!
TheCondor 2y ago
I’ve been wondering why I can’t get something in a NUC like form factor with some legit cores and memory for a decent price. The x4 is launched, I’d totally settle for like 4 x1 cores, 4 or 8 x3 or x4 cores would be ideal, something that can out perform an intel nuc. Pi’s are cool, but I need some compute. I think I’m starting to get it with this wacky licensing stuff. I’ve had some doubts the last few years but I have never really bet against intel. They have been shockingly good for a very very long time. A wave of elite x like parts on the desktop, at good prices, would hurt them, badly as the ecosystem spins up. AMD jumping in would also hurt them. The more ARM wastes this window of time, the more likely intel will get their process sorted and push out an aggressive microarchitecture on “x86s” and have ARM64 like qualities with some backwards compatibility
- OptionOfT 2y ago
  https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2024/05/qualcomm-accelerates-development-for-copilot--pcs-with-snapdrago https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2024/05/qualcomm-acce... If his litigation goes away I see a bright future for Arm. I'm just thinking of how much power I am wasting per day on Intel machines compared to Arm devices. (not taking into account the cost of purchase of course).
- philistine 2y ago
  You're doing the classic You want three things but you can only get two. You want fast, small, and cheap. You have to pick two. If you want fast and small, get a Mac Mini.
  - m463 2y ago
    "simplify, then add lightness"
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655516
musicale 2y ago
So do intel and AMD.
lxgr 2y ago
I was always wondering what the plan for Arm was post-IPO, given that they're currently trading at a P/E of more than 500 and they've historically been a low-margin, high-volume supplier. Here goes the pivot to become the next Intel, I guess?
kelsey98765431 2y ago
Once upon a time many moons ago i was given a development snapdragon board, pre FCC approval, for testing and application development. Rather quickly i had to contact my Qualcomm rep to inform them that iptables was missing. Not sure what i meant, they put me in contact with an engineer who scoffed at me and told me that i just needed to install the iptables binary from apt. I then showed him that no, the iptables binary was present and giving me an error i had never seen before: warning iptables is not present in this kernel. He went white and made a quick phone call and i was awarded for my discovery. Since then i have been fairly skeptical of qualcomm... Great hardware but that incident was somehow very alarming to me as it is not possible to disable iptables normally in kconfig so they had been mucking about in the source tree of the firewall enough to break it. I wonder what happened there.
- DrBenCarson 2y ago
  Holy hell, man That’s scary
- WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
  make allnoconfig, go from there, forget to turn netfilter on, oops
- walterbell 2y ago
  This time around, Qualcomm have sensibly contracted Linaro for upstream Linux support, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40350408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40350408
jjtheblunt 2y ago
interestingly i thought snapdragon x elite had qualcomm-proprietary hexagon vliw processing cores also, but it's not mentioned. that would clearly not be in arm's intellectual property, but it's strange these articles (i searched and read others besides that linked) overlook this.
- Moral_ 2y ago
  Remember the x-elite is an SoC. What is being discussed is solely the CPU cores not any of the SoC-- which includes the q6 processor and thus hexagon.
conradolandia 2y ago
Wow. Imagine an American company did this. People world admire then and the government would bail them out.
senorrib 2y ago
Question from a layman on processor arch: how much better is Arm (SoC design, instruction set etc) compared to RISC-V?

194 points by sharpshadow 2y ago

coob 2y ago

Wow this some pretty biased reporting. No attempt to assess whether or no Qualcomm have actually breached their contractual license with ARM

robertlagrant 2y ago
What's the bias? In whose favour?
- InTheArena 2y ago
  Qualcomm / Nuvia.
  - _flux 2y ago
    In which way is the article biased for them?
luag 2y ago
It does, under 'It's all about licensing' section.
_flux 2y ago
> Arm's argument is that the Nuvia license was canceled when it was taken over by Qualcomm. How could the reporter possibly know one way or another, certainly it depends on the contents of that contract? Has anyone outside these three parties (Qualcomm, Arm, Nuvia) have seen the contract in question? To me the reporting seemed quite unbiased.
- KingOfCoders 2y ago
  On top of that, only a court can decide about a breach of contract in the end.
- rickdeckard 2y ago
  Well, the terms of the contract are outlined in the respective lawsuit between ARM and Qualcomm: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualcomm-99-9999-stamped-complaint.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualco...
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    That document says what ARM lawyers want it to say, not what is true and lawful.
    - rickdeckard 2y ago
      Yeah, equally there is a document that says what Qualcomm's lawyers want it to say. Sorting through both and providing a summary is part of "journalism". Here's one from Qualcomm: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.79892/gov.uscourts.ded.79892.15.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.798... And a quote from it, where Qualcomm states that it has the rights to use the IP from Nuvia because it has a ARM-license covering the same IP as Nuvia's ARM-license: "3. Qualcomm has its own license agreements with ARM, under which Qualcomm has licensed and paid for the same intellectual property that NUVIA licensed under its own separate agreements with ARM. Therefore, even though ARM terminated the NUVIA licenses, Qualcomm owns independent licenses for the same ARM technology and information" - To this statement of ARM: "Upon termination, the Nuvia ALA requires Nuvia to cease using and destroy any technology developed under the Nuvia ALA, as well as cease using Arm’s trademarks in connection with any technology developed under the Nuvia ALA" The response of Qualcomm is this: "4. The notion that ARM has the right to control technology that is not ARM’s—and worse yet, to ask Defendants to destroy their innovation and inventions unless substantial monetary tribute is paid to ARM—offends customary norms of technology ownership, as well as NUVIA’s and Qualcomm’s rights under their agreements with ARM." and this: "7. ARM’s position is a threat to the industry generally. Unless this Court rejects ARM’s arguments, ARM’s extreme position could be weaponized against all of its licensees, allowing ARM to claim ownership over all its licensees’ innovations." - So, as an amateur reading through the case, there is sufficient information to conclude that ARM has a contract that limits the use of Nuvia IP to Nuvia alone, and Qualcomm tries to argue that these terms are "offending" and "a threat to the industry". --> So, there is obviously no disagreement that these crucial terms are in fact part of the ARM/Nuvia License contract.
jojobas 2y ago
It will take dozens of lawyers (at least three opinions between any two of them) many months and millions of dollars to figure it out, and you want the journalists to make a call? The article sums up rough positions of both parties well enough.
josephcsible 2y ago
Even if they did, I'd still object to requiring useful products to be turned into e-waste.
jeffbee 2y ago
Why would you want some blogger to draw conclusions of law?

lucianbr 2y ago

> Arm's argument is that the Nuvia license was canceled when it was taken over by Qualcomm. This is like a windows (or anything else) license for a private person, that you cannot resell or give to anyone else. I'm curious whether these shenanigans will stand up between corporations as well. Bad way of doing business, in any case.

InTheArena 2y ago
It’s very common for corporations to include successor clauses in contract, to give strategic partners an opportunity to relicense sweetheart deals that they might have given plucky startups *like Nuvia). My suspicion is that it’s going to be very straightforward for ARM to document what successor clauses are in place. I suspect we are going to find out that there is one, and Qualcomm don’t care. Qualcomm is more lawyer company with engineers these days - they even made apple back down on licensing.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Havoc 2y ago
Qualcomm has their own license too. ie in addition to the Nuvia one
- rickdeckard 2y ago
  Qualcomm's license doesn't cover the IP Nuvia created with their license, and Nuvia's license (and everything created under it) became void when Qualcomm acquired the company. Source: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualcomm-99-9999-stamped-complaint.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualco...
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    So says ARM. Qualcom says otherwise. We don't know who is right with only public info to go on. It all depends on what exactly Qualcoms contract says. Obviously Qualcom has fully educated and competent lawyers who have read their own contracts in detail, and concluded they are good to go. So it's not a given that ARMs assertion is the only valid and winning assertion. It's merely what they want. Maybe they have a right to what they want, maybe they don't.

chad1n 2y ago

Unless the contract made with Nuvia states explicitly that a successor has to resign a new agreement, I doubt that Arm has any chance to win in the court.

masklinn 2y ago
According to the original complaint, both Nuvia’s IP and licenses were only transferable with ARM’s agreement.
- vetinari 2y ago
  That doesn't matter; ARM's argument is, that the Nuvia IP is bound to Nuvia's license and cannot be used with a different license (which Qualcomm has, without limitation to server).
  - bluGill 2y ago
    License terms like this change all the time. The real question is why ARM isn't offering reasonable terms to allow this - or are/did they and it was rejected?
    - ac29 2y ago
      Probably a negotiating tactic. ARM is starting out by asking for something extreme (halting Elite X sales and destroying Nuvia's IP), when what they really want is for Qualcomm to renegotiate a new license for the IP with more money going to ARM.
  - afiori 2y ago
    I believe that Arm's argument is more in the other direction, that is that Qualcomm license does not cover IP developed by Nuvia.
    - masklinn 2y ago
      It’s both, and more: - Qualcomm’s license doesn’t provide for using third-party developments - Nuvia’s license doesn’t allow using it on other platforms than servers - Nuvia’s derived IP is not transferable without ARM agreement

omneity 2y ago

The reporting on this article is just bad. The issue is not Qualcomm taking over Nuvia's business and license. According to Arm the Nuvia license is contractually tied to server/datacenter usage, while Qualcomm's acquisition of Nuvia packaged these server cores into "Oryon" for PC use in the Snapdragon X Elite SoC and intends to use them in smartphones too, breaching the original agreement. Here's a better source: https://www.heise.de/en/news/ARM-torpedoes-Windows-on-ARM-Demands-destruction-of-all-PCs-with-Snapdragon-X-9758434.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/ARM-torpedoes-Windows-on-ARM-De...

dvdkon 2y ago
Do you have a source not behind a "cookie wall"? I remember Qualcomm making phone SoCs with custom cores some years back. Why is it suddenly an issue now? Or were those just rebrands of tweaked Cortex designs? EDIT: From reading the Reuters article [0] it seems that Arm's argument is that since Nuvia's cores were developed under a now-terminated licence, Qualcomm doesn't have a right to use them, their other licences notwithstanding. [0]: https://www.usnews.com/news/technology/articles/2024-06-10/analysis-arm-qualcomm-legal-battle-seen-disrupting-ai-powered-pc-wave https://www.usnews.com/news/technology/articles/2024-06-10/a...
- jraph 2y ago
  (The page displays fine with js disabled)
- bpfrh 2y ago
  The argument is that Nuvia got a licence for server usage and development support from arm to develop custom arm processors. Qualcom now wants to use technology developt under a specific licence agreement in use cases not covered in that licence agreement, because they have general licence agreement with arm. The question is: Does the general licence agreement from qualcom override the specific licence agreement between Nuvia and arm for this specific technology. I found some sources which partially explains this: https://www.ft.com/content/5535ce39-ab22-497a-a8d6-52a690d1b446 https://www.ft.com/content/5535ce39-ab22-497a-a8d6-52a690d1b... https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/01/why-arms-lawsuit-against-qualcomm-is-a-big-deal.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/01/why-arms-lawsuit-against-qua... (...Nuvia, a startup founded by former Apple and Google engineers, was developing a server chip with custom cores under an architecture license. It also had access to Arm’s core designs....)

sterlind 2y ago

Why does Qualcomm need a license to design a custom ARM chip in the first place? Assuming they're not reusing or deriving from licensed IP blocks, and that they just cracked open a reference book and implemented the instruction set from scratch. Does ARM hold a copyright on the instruction set itself? Can you even copyright an instruction set? Or is it a bunch of patents?

fredgrott 2y ago
arm licenses the design of the cpu, etc. including any patents
immibis 2y ago
Is it custom?
dvdkon 2y ago
ISAs are "protected" (read: monopolised) using patents IIRC.
- kragen 2y ago
  thumb-2 is from 02002 and should therefore be off patent, but presumably this is arm64
rickdeckard 2y ago
"Snapdragon X Elite" is based on the IP Qualcomm gained from the Acquisition of Nuvia, who developed this IP based on a very narrow license they got from ARM to develop for the server market. Qualcomm is trying to transfer everything Nuvia has developed under that specific narrow ARM-license to the broad license of Qualcomm and use it for "powering flagship smartphones, next-generation laptops, and digital cockpits, as well as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, extended reality and infrastructure networking solutions" ARM has filed a lawsuit that this was never in scope of the license of Nuvia, the court-ruling is still pending on that one...
- foxandmouse 2y ago

mensetmanusman 2y ago

I’m kind of terrified of a fast windows experience where pushing the start menu button immediately brings up advertisements in the blink of an eye. At least in the past if I was fast enough it would fail to load in time.

blahgeek 2y ago
On the bright side, it can also automatically apply updates and reboot in the blink of an eye, so all you perceives is that every app windows disappear. :)
whalesalad 2y ago
Login screen ads will have such low latency you’ll be able to see home mortgage loan prices live in the quicken loans ad
yellow_lead 2y ago
Don't worry, Microsoft excels at absorbing hardware improvements as bloat in their software.
- stanac 2y ago
  From wikipedia: > Wirth's law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. > "The hope is that the progress in hardware will cure all software ills. However, a critical observer may observe that software manages to outgrow hardware in size and sluggishness." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law
- lbruder 2y ago
  What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away.
cosmojg 2y ago
You could always try running Linux instead.

dvdkon 2y ago

It looks like ARM is hell-bent on making the case for RISC-V, or maybe even on getting someone to challenge their ISA patents in court (if Qualcomm's new chips are custom designs). Here's hoping this kind of greed won't pay off.

masklinn 2y ago
According to ARM’s complaint, they gave Nuvia exclusive licensing rights and IP access for specific purpose. Rather than work with arm to negotiate their own deal (or even access Nuvia’s derived IP in good faith) Qualcomm: - tried to discretely transfer the licenses to a brand new entity - worked directly with Nuvia’s cores, which Qualcomm’s own license did not permit - kept at it after nuvia’s own license was terminated - kept using the Arm trademark in their copy despite that also being linked to the licensing agreement So from ARM’s point of view, Qualcomm are the greedy ones, and lazy to boot.
- dvdkon 2y ago
  It seems weird to me to buy a company and then have to licence the company's own IP from a third party (AFAIK Qualcomm has an ARM ISA licence). Maybe Nuvia signed away exclusive rights to Arm, but at that point they'd be basically working for someone else's benefit. Or maybe the cores aren't as custom as Qualcomm is telling us, and they contain some separately-licenced Arm tech.
  - bpfrh 2y ago
    I don't think it is weird. Imagine you buy a non profit which has a special windows licence and then you use that licence for all your for profit windows devices, I don't think that that would be possible. AFAIK ARM gave Nuvia a licence to use their ip (and access to their IP) for a specific market. imho Qualcom has the right to use the nuvia ip as laid out in the licence agreement, but not for markets where no licence exists e.g. laptops. Edit: removed some nonsensical text
    - dvdkon 2y ago

CodeArtisan 2y ago

Arm Ltd. v. Qualcomm Inc. (1:22-cv-01146) https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/gov.uscourts.ded_.79892.1.0.pdf https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/gov.u... From the complaint: 22. (Page 6) [...] The licenses safeguarded Arm’s rights and expectations by prohibiting assignment without Arm’s consent, regardless of whether a contemplated assignee had its own Arm licenses. 39. (Page 12) On February 1, 2022, Arm sent a letter to Nuvia and Qualcomm terminating the Nuvia licenses effective March 1, 2022. The letter terminated the licenses based on Nuvia’s material breach of the assignment provisions of the Nuvia licenses by entering into the acquisition of Nuvia without Arm’s consent. 42. (Page 12) On April 1, 2022, Qualcomm’s General Counsel sent Arm a letter enclosing a Nuvia representative’s termination certification. The certification acknowledged—without objection—that the Nuvia licenses had been terminated. The certification recognized the obligations upon termination, and asserted that Nuvia was in compliance. Qualcomm and Nuvia thereby conceded that termination of the Nuvia licenses was appropriate, and that the termination provisions had been triggered, are binding, and are enforceable. 47. (Page 14) Qualcomm’s Arm licenses do not cover products based on or incorporating Arm-based technologies developed by third parties under different Arm licenses 62. (Page 17) Upon termination, the Nuvia ALA requires Nuvia to cease using and destroy any technology developed under the Nuvia ALA, as well as cease using Arm’s trademarks in connection with any technology developed under the Nuvia ALA.

dtx1 2y ago

>So, there you have it. Arm wants Qualcomm to stop shipping the product it's been contesting, but to be honest, that's not usually how these things end. It's unlikely that any product will be delayed from hitting shelves. These cases tend to end with one company giving a bucket of cash to the other, and everyone moves on. Yeah, basically this. Though it seems rather risky of Qualcomm to essentially byte the hand that feeds them. If I was ARM, I'd consider not extending any licenses given to Qualcomm this.

afiori 2y ago
I believe that Qualcomm, like Apple has a perpetual license that could be hard for Arm to terminate

sergius 2y ago

Does this make Risk V more attractive?

delfinom 2y ago
It's why Qualcomm is investing into RISC V because ARM is trying to burn the house down on many fronts. https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2023/08/leading-semiconductor-industry-players-join-forces-to-accelerate https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2023/08/leading-semic...
rwmj 2y ago
It's a really dumb move from Arm, regardless of what the actual contracts say.
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  Not necessarily, they aren’t making much money from this. They really just want to negotiate a better deal not to prevent Qualcomm from building their own cores..

Taniwha 2y ago

Who wants to bet that Qualcom is spinning a RISC-V version as fast as it can - this after all is why open source ISAs are a good thing

rwmj 2y ago
They've been very active in RISC-V technical groups recently. What exactly that means - whether they are serious about developing cores, or just want an insurance policy with leverage to use against Arm - isn't clear. Personally I hope we do get a "Snapdragon V" one day.
lobochrome 2y ago
I’ll take that
sloowm 2y ago
I don't think Qualcomm or any of the current market leaders will be the first to do a big RISC-V push. While dealing with the ARM company might be a hassle having an exclusive ISA limits the competition which is good for business. When the first one moves and the software is created for it there are more opportunities for competitors. Qualcomm doesn't want to create the invitation but also wants to make sure there is a place at the party for them. RISC-V will probably get it's first big adoption through some new or shifting industry creating their own chip. Like how ARM got into phones or Amazon started to use their own ARM chips. This guarantees all the infrastructure can be build and used in the future.
wildzzz 2y ago
It's nice having an open ISA but companies go with ARM because the cores are already developed. There are RISC-V cores available for purchase too but they aren't up to the same level of performance yet.
- snvzz 2y ago
  SiFive announced P870[0] last October[1]. It competes with ARM's absolute best. Ventana Veyron V2 and Tenstorrent Ascalon/Alastor are other already announced, highly competitive, very high performance microarchitectures. The high performance chips are coming. RISC-V is inevitable. 0. https://www.sifive.com/cores/performance-p870-p870a https://www.sifive.com/cores/performance-p870-p870a 1. https://www.sifive.com/press/sifive-announces-differentiated-solutions-for-generative https://www.sifive.com/press/sifive-announces-differentiated...

notorandit 2y ago

I for one am just waiting for RISC-V to take over.

ffgjgf1 2y ago
Qualcomm would just probably develop their own proprietary cores with patented/proprietary extensions (because why wouldn’t they?). Crippling the ability of other RISC-v chips to run the software built primarily Qualcomm CPUs. Now at least there is ARM keeping them somewhat in check..
- hammyhavoc 2y ago
  Cheap and open is going to win in this situation, even if what you described happens. Nobody wants to pay the piper in terms of licensing fees.

rowanG077 2y ago

To me this seems a real bad move by arm. They are showcasing to all their customers why they need to get of arm asap.

bluGill 2y ago
Unless ARM can show they are offering reasonable terms to make this legal. I know of other cases (I'm under NDA so don't ask for details) where a company has decided to switch course and the new one wasn't allowed under the old contract, but the contract was renegotiated to allow the switch.

soundnote 2y ago

So this is why the LTT video on Snapdragon X had Arm blurred out XD

anoncow 2y ago

It is time to destroy ARM

BirAdam 2y ago

ARM has had a series of issues, but it has continued to do well despite all of them. The thing is, they’ve been doing well because of license holders. That’s their business. If they keep treating their customers poorly, they will lose. RISC-V, MIPS, and OpenPower are all available. This is especially poignant when we remember that ARM is currently valuable for its performance per watt, and not for its raw performance capability. As x86 gets better at efficiency, and as RISC-V gets better at raw performance, ARM’s entire market fit shrinks. Their best move would be to become more lenient in licensing terms, not less. Edit, I was thinking market share when I said “do well” but ffgjgf1 pointed out that they’ve not been doing well financially. That’s an excellent point and likely explains some of ARM’s behavior. The problem is, alienating your license holders will only make the financials worse…

ffgjgf1 2y ago
> but it has continued to do well despite all of them Financially they haven’t really been doing that well, especially no compared to other chip designers, they are basically making peanuts.
- BirAdam 2y ago
  I was thinking more in terms of market share, but you raise an excellent point.

fingerlocks 2y ago

dupe with 90 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655516

nottorp 2y ago

Arm was cuter when they were the underdog. Are Risc-V designs unencumbered, or there's still some IP holder that could sue you when the money pot grows big enough to make it worth it?

wildzzz 2y ago
If you are just using the RISC-V core alongside cores you've developed yourself or have licenses for, you're set. RISC-V ISA is provided. It has a very permissive, royalty-free license but you will need to become a paid member to use their trademark. I suppose they could change their license model at some point and attempt to revoke existing licenses but that would be suicide for them. Just like with all standards, there is always an IP holder but it's all a matter of how that IP is licensed out to users and the association that user can display with the IP holder. For example, you can sell a device with a Raspberry Pi inside but you can't use the HDMI trademark on your marketing materials without being a member of the HDMI Foundation.
- nottorp 2y ago
  > I suppose they could change their license model at some point and attempt to revoke existing licenses but that would be suicide for them. ... now. How about when it gets popular and too much resources have been poured into them? Like arm...
philistine 2y ago
Do not blame ARM's terrible attempts at ever more rent-seeking to their leadership position. Blame it on their incredibly boneheaded ownership history. SoftBank paid way too much for ARM, and now they have to try and make the money back somehow.
- nottorp 2y ago
  What, Japan doesn't have bankruptcy?
- SK777 2y ago
  SoftBank paid $32 billion for ARM and now it's worth over $165 billion. They paid too much? Really?

shrubble 2y ago

I am almost tempted to buy one ASAP, in case ARM is successful; it would be an instant collectible!

TheCondor 2y ago

I’ve been wondering why I can’t get something in a NUC like form factor with some legit cores and memory for a decent price. The x4 is launched, I’d totally settle for like 4 x1 cores, 4 or 8 x3 or x4 cores would be ideal, something that can out perform an intel nuc. Pi’s are cool, but I need some compute. I think I’m starting to get it with this wacky licensing stuff. I’ve had some doubts the last few years but I have never really bet against intel. They have been shockingly good for a very very long time. A wave of elite x like parts on the desktop, at good prices, would hurt them, badly as the ecosystem spins up. AMD jumping in would also hurt them. The more ARM wastes this window of time, the more likely intel will get their process sorted and push out an aggressive microarchitecture on “x86s” and have ARM64 like qualities with some backwards compatibility

OptionOfT 2y ago
https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2024/05/qualcomm-accelerates-development-for-copilot--pcs-with-snapdrago https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2024/05/qualcomm-acce... If his litigation goes away I see a bright future for Arm. I'm just thinking of how much power I am wasting per day on Intel machines compared to Arm devices. (not taking into account the cost of purchase of course).
philistine 2y ago
You're doing the classic You want three things but you can only get two. You want fast, small, and cheap. You have to pick two. If you want fast and small, get a Mac Mini.
- m463 2y ago
  "simplify, then add lightness"

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655516

musicale 2y ago

So do intel and AMD.

lxgr 2y ago

I was always wondering what the plan for Arm was post-IPO, given that they're currently trading at a P/E of more than 500 and they've historically been a low-margin, high-volume supplier. Here goes the pivot to become the next Intel, I guess?

kelsey98765431 2y ago

Once upon a time many moons ago i was given a development snapdragon board, pre FCC approval, for testing and application development. Rather quickly i had to contact my Qualcomm rep to inform them that iptables was missing. Not sure what i meant, they put me in contact with an engineer who scoffed at me and told me that i just needed to install the iptables binary from apt. I then showed him that no, the iptables binary was present and giving me an error i had never seen before: warning iptables is not present in this kernel. He went white and made a quick phone call and i was awarded for my discovery. Since then i have been fairly skeptical of qualcomm... Great hardware but that incident was somehow very alarming to me as it is not possible to disable iptables normally in kconfig so they had been mucking about in the source tree of the firewall enough to break it. I wonder what happened there.

DrBenCarson 2y ago
Holy hell, man That’s scary
WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
make allnoconfig, go from there, forget to turn netfilter on, oops
walterbell 2y ago
This time around, Qualcomm have sensibly contracted Linaro for upstream Linux support, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40350408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40350408

jjtheblunt 2y ago

interestingly i thought snapdragon x elite had qualcomm-proprietary hexagon vliw processing cores also, but it's not mentioned. that would clearly not be in arm's intellectual property, but it's strange these articles (i searched and read others besides that linked) overlook this.

Moral_ 2y ago
Remember the x-elite is an SoC. What is being discussed is solely the CPU cores not any of the SoC-- which includes the q6 processor and thus hexagon.

conradolandia 2y ago

Wow. Imagine an American company did this. People world admire then and the government would bail them out.

senorrib 2y ago

Question from a layman on processor arch: how much better is Arm (SoC design, instruction set etc) compared to RISC-V?