Arm Disputes Qualcomm's Claim It's Licensing Only to OEMs (Not Chipmakers) After 2024 (fierceelectronics.com) 45
Fierce Electronics reports on "a complex legal battle in U.S. district court" between Qualcomm and Arm "over licensing of intellectual property with potentially far-reaching impact..."
Normally, Arm licenses its architectural designs and related IP to chipmakers such as Nvidia or Qualcomm, which in turn produce chips that are then sold to OEMs that use those chips to make servers and other computers and devices. In an updated Qualcomm counterclaim made public Oct. 26, Qualcomm argues that Arm is no longer going to license its CPU designs after 2024 to Qualcomm and other chip companies under technology license agreements. Instead, Qualcomm asserts, Arm will only license to a broad array of device makers....
Arm has not yet formally responded to Qualcomm's latest counterclaim but told Fierce Electronics via email on Friday that Qualcomm's complaint is "riddled with inaccuracies" that Arm will address in a formal legal response in coming weeks....
[Analyst] Dylan Patel in SemiAnalysis also said the counterclaim shows Arm is not planning to allow external GPUs, NPUs or ISPs in Arm-based SoCs. "It seems that Arm is effectively bundling its other IP with the CPU IP in a take-it-or-leave-it model," Patel said. "That would mean Samsung's licensing deal with AMD for GPU or Mediatek with Imagination GPU is not longer allowed after 2024...." Qualcomm argues Arm is making it clear to the marketplace that "it will act recklessly and opportunistically, threatening the development of new and innovative products as a negotiating tactic, not because it has valid license and trademark claims."
Again, Arm has called Qualcomm's complaint "riddled with inaccuracies." Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, tells Fierce Wireless that If Qualcomm's counterclaim is accurate, "this is a troubling step for the industry." If Arm were to get rid of tech licensing as described by Qualcomm, it would give rise to RISC-V use, something Arm "should be worried about," Gold said....
[Analyst] Patel has also questioned if Arm's original lawsuit is more than just about money and might be because Softbank (owner of Arm) and Arm remain angry that Qualcomm, as Patel puts it, worked with regulators to block Nvidia's $40 billion acquisition of Arm. After working for more than a year to seal the deal, Nvidia and SoftBank announced the termination of the proposed deal on Feb. 7, 2022, due to "significant regulatory challenges." Arm was expected to go public within a year, but an IPO has not occurred as of late October.
Arm has not yet formally responded to Qualcomm's latest counterclaim but told Fierce Electronics via email on Friday that Qualcomm's complaint is "riddled with inaccuracies" that Arm will address in a formal legal response in coming weeks....
[Analyst] Dylan Patel in SemiAnalysis also said the counterclaim shows Arm is not planning to allow external GPUs, NPUs or ISPs in Arm-based SoCs. "It seems that Arm is effectively bundling its other IP with the CPU IP in a take-it-or-leave-it model," Patel said. "That would mean Samsung's licensing deal with AMD for GPU or Mediatek with Imagination GPU is not longer allowed after 2024...." Qualcomm argues Arm is making it clear to the marketplace that "it will act recklessly and opportunistically, threatening the development of new and innovative products as a negotiating tactic, not because it has valid license and trademark claims."
Again, Arm has called Qualcomm's complaint "riddled with inaccuracies." Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, tells Fierce Wireless that If Qualcomm's counterclaim is accurate, "this is a troubling step for the industry." If Arm were to get rid of tech licensing as described by Qualcomm, it would give rise to RISC-V use, something Arm "should be worried about," Gold said....
[Analyst] Patel has also questioned if Arm's original lawsuit is more than just about money and might be because Softbank (owner of Arm) and Arm remain angry that Qualcomm, as Patel puts it, worked with regulators to block Nvidia's $40 billion acquisition of Arm. After working for more than a year to seal the deal, Nvidia and SoftBank announced the termination of the proposed deal on Feb. 7, 2022, due to "significant regulatory challenges." Arm was expected to go public within a year, but an IPO has not occurred as of late October.
Sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
Arm is killing their own business model. If designers (such as Qualcomm, with an architectural license) find that combining their own cores with other IP is very complicated, they might start considering seriously the migration to a different ISA. And when they move to RISC-V, they will not come back to ARM.
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That's roughly what I was thinking. If Arm is really going to do what is being claimed, they'll just accelerate the move to RISC-V. They can't sit on their relevance like it will always be there.
But this is still a rumor, so let's wait and see. And if it's true, it might even wake up an exec or two to ask what the fuck they think they're doing.
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It just means that designers who want to use their own graphics IP will have to move the GPU off-package.
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Increase board size. That would be the only option. Either that or move to some kind of an MCM package where the iGPU isn't actually a part of the SoC from a hardware perspective.
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Re:Sounds like (Score:4, Insightful)
Change IS scary. Without knowing the precise changes it's hard to predict what is going on.
Qualcomm would know all about killing competition by monopolistic actions. There is a reason you see their CPU's so much in the US. And it isn't that the CPU is so much better than anyone else's. I'll give a hint and it's about wireless IP related to cell phones and it starts with a C.
Source? I used to do performance + power automation and analysis at a competitor. Apple is the 100 ton gorilla in the ARM space. They just won't sell their highly optimized design to any competitors, nor seem to license any related IP from anyone else (last I saw they were replacing many previously standard ARM IP with Apple owned and created stuff).
Krait was a dhrystone and megahertz machine. Customers see X.Y GHz and think it's good enough. I know Qualcomm had a new design, but I haven't heard that it's so much better so I assume it's not.
Last I saw, Intel wasn't anything to crow about either. I don't know if they're even making parts at that mobile tablet/phone level anymore.
Samsung was pretty standard ARM results. Not terrible, but not amazingly better. They still used two sets of CPU types in a lot of devices... Qualcomm for US, and Exynos (their own) for the rest of the world.
Yeah, the little bit of RISC-V news I hear gives me hope for a competitor, but really... There is a LOT of work to add new ISA support for existing tools. Or to create new versions of things for RISC-V that ARM includes for debugging parts at a deep level. Unless Google puts in their hat to start the process, or they get a bunch of patches from China, I don't see RISC-V mattering much on Android like devices. Though getting a good base of Linux support is an important first step (I would hope that's going to happen or is done, but not my job anymore :D).
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Alibaba already has done much of the legwork in porting AOSP to Risc-V for Android 13.
China have their own app stores, so it's not like they need Google's blessing, within their own borders at least.
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"More than just about money" (Score:2)
I find it hard to believe that something as crucial to their business model as this licencing would be handled differently just because they bear a grudge ?
Re: "More than just about money" (Score:2)
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I'd say we're more living in an age of old guys spouting off weird theories, often global and conspiratorial in nature, that attempt to explain away any and all phenomena no matter how unrelated it is to the substance of their weird theories.
Read what you just wrote. You're a fucking crackpot.
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The word "virtue" in the parent post was the tell.
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Young people are all communists these days. Sometimes they have strange coloured hair, and they're nice to people, even if they're gay or foreign and it's scary and I don't like it.
Also, I think they're laughing at me because my trousers are out of fashion.
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I find it hard to believe that something as crucial to their business model as this licencing would be handled differently just because they bear a grudge ?
That's an overly simplistic view. Fundamentally businesses are all about money, but in the short term actions can be about other things you hope to lead to money eventually (or protect existing revenue streams) like control.
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Never underestimate the ability of highly paid executives to act like small children.
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FTFY
Off by 1 error (Score:1)
When it comes to technology legal battles, “riddled with inaccuracies” generally means mostly true.
Qualcomm tactics (Score:3)
Sounds like using Qualcomm tactics against Qualcomm, for better or worse.
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Yeah, that's what I thought, too. (Only without Qualcomm's additional leverage of Standards-Essential Patents as the hammer in the licensing portfolio.)
OK ARM, then set the record straight (Score:2)
OK, which parts are inaccurate? Specifically?
(and) (Score:2)
And why will it take WEEKS to give us an answer if it's not materially true and you're not just going to the lawyers to find out exactly what lies you can get away with telling? It's easy to relate facts, just open your face and let them come out
Once again (Score:2)
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Once again ItÃ(TM)s all about third parties babbling. T
What? One of them represents Qualcomm and another one represents ARM, there are no third parties involved here. They are both first parties. And the representative for ARM says it's bullshit, but then can't say why it's bullshit for weeks, by his own words? That means something is in fact happening, and it likely means that it bears considerable resemblance to what the representative from Qualcomm says it does. But there's still time to backpedal, so maybe they will do that now that this has come out.
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Once again ItÃ(TM)s all about third parties babbling. T
What? One of them represents Qualcomm and another one represents ARM, there are no third parties involved here. They are both first parties. And the representative for ARM says it's bullshit, but then can't say why it's bullshit for weeks, by his own words? That means something is in fact happening, and it likely means that it bears considerable resemblance to what the representative from Qualcomm says it does. But there's still time to backpedal, so maybe they will do that now that this has come out.
I think we'll know how serious this is if Apple joins with Qualcomm in this suit.
Both Apple and Qualcomm have Architecture-Class Arm licenses; so they both theoretically are in as much, if any, real jeopardy from Arm's sabre-rattling.
However, for Apple's part, I think they are just quietly working on their own homegrown CPU Architecture. They have had their fill being beholden to one CPU Designer after another's "roadmap", "inability to execute" and/or general asshattery. So I would be very surprised if the
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I agree with your assessment. Apple wants to control the stack from top to bottom. I wouldn't be surprised to see them with their own fabs in the future, and going back to actually owning their assembly plants as well. If you can consume or otherwise utilize your production at every stage this can save you a bundle. Just to keep it relevant to Slashdot, it works for Brembo... ;)
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I agree with your assessment. Apple wants to control the stack from top to bottom. I wouldn't be surprised to see them with their own fabs in the future, and going back to actually owning their assembly plants as well. If you can consume or otherwise utilize your production at every stage this can save you a bundle. Just to keep it relevant to Slashdot, it works for Brembo... ;)
And I agree with your Agree-ment! ;-)
The one step I am unsure about is the part about owning Fabs.
While I am sure you are right that Apple would, philosophically, L-O-V-E(!!!) to also control that last link in the CPU/GPU/SoC chain (and, if PRC gets too saucy about Taiwan, they may have to!), I also know that Apple realizes just how YUUGE an undertaking that is, and so really wants no part of it. . .
But again, we're talking about a company that erected and maintains several pretty fucking YUUGE Datacenters
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ARM is responding in a lawsuit. Their representatives would be fools to give a more specific public response before the lawyers craft an official response. And it shouldn't surprise anyone that good lawyers might take weeks to do their work well.
Open source? (Score:3)
Maybe it's time to develop an open-source computer model. With Intel/AMD being a duopoly on the x86/x64 formats, people thought ARM would be the savior, but if ARM is going to pull this crap, it's obvious they can't be trusted either.
The world could really benefit from an open source CPU design, similar to how it has greatly benefitted from Linux as an open-source OS.
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Well, that's why they reference RISC-V as a looming possibility if ARM gets too painful to deal with. RISC-V aims to be precisely what you describe.
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Yes but it will take a while yet. RISC-V is maturing but I'd say it's still several generations behind ARM. RISC-V will eventually be exactly what you are talking about.
Anyone who thought ARM would be competition to Intel and AMD in any space other than smartphones and embedded computing was just fooling themselves. ARM will never be a serious server player and certainly won't be a serious Desktop or Laptop player outside of Apple, ever. ARM just doesn't care about this market at all. They seem perfectl
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Anyone who thought ARM would be competition to Intel and AMD in any space other than smartphones and embedded computing was just fooling themselves.
I don't know if I agree with that. I don't know if it will wind up being ARM or RISC-V or some other thing that hasn't been invented yet, but I think there's plenty of room for amd64 to be dethroned by something not designed for as many ops per core as parallel computing becomes ever more popular. Here's my rationale, cost always matters, and you really want to have just one architecture for everything. And so far there's no evidence that you can scale amd64 or similar down far enough to be practical in e.g
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I think it does matter to mass acceptance for those who have been using Windows on a Desktop or laptop. I certainly can't see MS wanting to support such a mess of an ecosystem. PCs with a standard set of hardware are bad enough to support in their variations. No, ARM will never replace Intel and AMD in this space.
ARM is right that smart phones are more lucrative and where the growth is happening. So they did choose right in that sense. We just need to stop wishing for ARM as a general platform to be som
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RISC-V can't get here soon enough (Score:1)
Can it ever end up in PCs ? unlikely because of the microsoft monopoly (yes, justice department, it's a monopoly)
However it could definitely be used in high quantities in mobile phones and tablets.
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How do you define PCs? There are and have been personal computers with lots of different architectures. If you mean dominating the market though, there's some pressure from the mobile market for more efficient processors. And nobody really wants to have different architectures to deal with, so if something else takes over mobile computing it will also have a good chance to take over the desktop as well.
Such is the peril (Score:2)
.. of licensing IP
Terms can change