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> where ARM is also increasingly making inroads with more efficient designs that deliver comparable performance. ARM isn't doing any such thing. Apple & Qualco

> where ARM is also increasingly making inroads with more efficient designs that deliver comparable performance. ARM isn't doing any such thing. Apple & Qualcomm are, though. ARM itself if anything looks weak. Their mobile cores have stagnated, their laptop attempts complete failures, and while there's hints of life in data center it also seems mediocre overall.

rwmj 2y ago
Don't forget their "brilliant" strategy of suing their own customers.
- dagmx 2y ago
  Being a customer shouldn’t protect a company from lawsuits. ARM feels they have merit here , just like Qualcomm did when they sued Apple. It’s not that rare in the corporate setting to have suits between companies with otherwise amicable relationships.
  - rwmj 2y ago
    The optics can still be terrible. Qualcomm (or more accurately, Nuvia, the company they acquired) produced some stunning chips with almost unheard of battery life for a laptop, and Arm are suing them to use their own inferior designs. They even tried to have end user laptops recalled and destroyed! There's no world where this looks good for Arm.
    - dagmx 2y ago
      There’s a very clear bias and idolization in this comment of yours which is based on a misunderstanding of the case at hand. ARM aren’t trying to force Qualcomm to use ARMs cores. They’re trying to force them to update the licensing royalties to make up for the (as ARM sees it) licensing term violations of Nuvia who had a design license for specific use cases. The part you reference (using ARM designs) is the fallback if Qualcomm lose their design license. The destruction of the chips is standard practice to request in cases of license and IP infringement .
      - kllrnohj 2y ago
        Qualcomm already had a design license prior to the acquisition of Nuvia. They were doing custom cores back in the original Kryo days which were an in-house custom ARMv8.0-A design.
        bluGill 2y ago
        The terms of that license was specific to what they can do. ARM is claiming it doesn't cover some of the things they are doing. I'm not enough of a lawyer to figure out who is right.
        dagmx 2y ago
        Their design license doesn’t extend to Nuvia’s IP however according to ARM. That is the entire crux of the issue. ARM gave Nuvia a specific license, and then Nuvia was acquired which transferred the IP to a license that ARM did not extend it to.
    - klelatti 2y ago
      Hypothetically, if Qualcomm have broken their Arm licenses in a way that damages Arm’s business do you think Arm are supposed to just let them carry on? Should Arm say ‘legal action won’t look good so we’ll just let it pass’? And the fact that Qualcomm got just about everyone to endorse the acquisition ahead of announcing it but didn’t even tell Arm is a bit of a tell.
      - rwmj 2y ago
        Arm's major competition is RISC-V. Qualcomm engineers have been joining the important RISC-V committees recently. If Arm beats Qualcomm in the courts, Qualcomm will switch to RISC-V, and then Arm will have won the battle but lost the war.
        klelatti 2y ago
        If Qualcomm loses to Arm in the courts then they have a big problem in 2025 which switching to RISC-V at some point in the future will not solve for them.
    - aseipp 2y ago
      They are not suing them to use "inferior designs," you're completely misrepresenting the issue. They are suing them over IP and contract violations. The ISA in question is irrelevant here, you could also get sued by SiFive if you licensed their cores and then did something that SiFive believed violated that license. It's not that deep.
mort96 2y ago
This feels a bit pedantic. ARM-the-CPU-architecture is increasingly making inroads with more efficient designs that deliver comparable performance to Intel's x86 chips, thanks to Apple and Qualcomm. ARM-the-holding-company is not doing that, they just make mediocre designs and own IP.
- kllrnohj 2y ago
  The post I was replying to had 3 other companies mentioned or referred to (INTC, AMD, and NVDA), it seems odd that they'd suddenly have meant ARM-the-ISA instead of ARM-the-company when ISA wasn't otherwise being discussed at all. But even if they meant ARM-the-ISA, that'd still put it in a fragile position when the 2 clear market leaders in the ARM-the-ISA space have no particular allegiance to ARM-the-ISA (Apple having changed ISAs several times already, and QCOM both being active in RISC-V and also being sued by ARM-the-company)
UltraSane 2y ago
AWS is basically running 100% of their own software on their own Graviton ARM CPU

rwmj 2y ago

Don't forget their "brilliant" strategy of suing their own customers.

dagmx 2y ago
Being a customer shouldn’t protect a company from lawsuits. ARM feels they have merit here , just like Qualcomm did when they sued Apple. It’s not that rare in the corporate setting to have suits between companies with otherwise amicable relationships.
- rwmj 2y ago
  The optics can still be terrible. Qualcomm (or more accurately, Nuvia, the company they acquired) produced some stunning chips with almost unheard of battery life for a laptop, and Arm are suing them to use their own inferior designs. They even tried to have end user laptops recalled and destroyed! There's no world where this looks good for Arm.
  - dagmx 2y ago
    There’s a very clear bias and idolization in this comment of yours which is based on a misunderstanding of the case at hand. ARM aren’t trying to force Qualcomm to use ARMs cores. They’re trying to force them to update the licensing royalties to make up for the (as ARM sees it) licensing term violations of Nuvia who had a design license for specific use cases. The part you reference (using ARM designs) is the fallback if Qualcomm lose their design license. The destruction of the chips is standard practice to request in cases of license and IP infringement .
    - kllrnohj 2y ago
      Qualcomm already had a design license prior to the acquisition of Nuvia. They were doing custom cores back in the original Kryo days which were an in-house custom ARMv8.0-A design.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        The terms of that license was specific to what they can do. ARM is claiming it doesn't cover some of the things they are doing. I'm not enough of a lawyer to figure out who is right.
      - dagmx 2y ago
        Their design license doesn’t extend to Nuvia’s IP however according to ARM. That is the entire crux of the issue. ARM gave Nuvia a specific license, and then Nuvia was acquired which transferred the IP to a license that ARM did not extend it to.
  - klelatti 2y ago
    Hypothetically, if Qualcomm have broken their Arm licenses in a way that damages Arm’s business do you think Arm are supposed to just let them carry on? Should Arm say ‘legal action won’t look good so we’ll just let it pass’? And the fact that Qualcomm got just about everyone to endorse the acquisition ahead of announcing it but didn’t even tell Arm is a bit of a tell.
    - rwmj 2y ago
      Arm's major competition is RISC-V. Qualcomm engineers have been joining the important RISC-V committees recently. If Arm beats Qualcomm in the courts, Qualcomm will switch to RISC-V, and then Arm will have won the battle but lost the war.
      - klelatti 2y ago
        If Qualcomm loses to Arm in the courts then they have a big problem in 2025 which switching to RISC-V at some point in the future will not solve for them.
  - aseipp 2y ago
    They are not suing them to use "inferior designs," you're completely misrepresenting the issue. They are suing them over IP and contract violations. The ISA in question is irrelevant here, you could also get sued by SiFive if you licensed their cores and then did something that SiFive believed violated that license. It's not that deep.

mort96 2y ago

This feels a bit pedantic. ARM-the-CPU-architecture is increasingly making inroads with more efficient designs that deliver comparable performance to Intel's x86 chips, thanks to Apple and Qualcomm. ARM-the-holding-company is not doing that, they just make mediocre designs and own IP.

kllrnohj 2y ago
The post I was replying to had 3 other companies mentioned or referred to (INTC, AMD, and NVDA), it seems odd that they'd suddenly have meant ARM-the-ISA instead of ARM-the-company when ISA wasn't otherwise being discussed at all. But even if they meant ARM-the-ISA, that'd still put it in a fragile position when the 2 clear market leaders in the ARM-the-ISA space have no particular allegiance to ARM-the-ISA (Apple having changed ISAs several times already, and QCOM both being active in RISC-V and also being sued by ARM-the-company)

UltraSane 2y ago

AWS is basically running 100% of their own software on their own Graviton ARM CPU