[HN Gopher] Qualcomm wins licensing fight with Arm over chip des...
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Qualcomm wins licensing fight with Arm over chip designs
Author : my123
Score : 64 points
Date : 2024-12-20 21:28 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| hu3 wrote:
| https://archive.is/2uHTU
| jasoneckert wrote:
| Does the fact that the "jurors weren't able to agree on whether
| Nuvia breached the license" mean that the legal fight isn't over?
|
| Or is that question irrelevant in light of the other findings,
| and the legal fight is actually over, with Qualcomm as the clear
| winner?
| phire wrote:
| I suspect it's mostly irrelevant.
|
| ARM should be able to re-file the lawsuit and get financial
| damages out of Nuvia, which Qualcomm will need to pay. But I
| doubt the damages will be high enough to bother Qualcomm. I
| don't think ARM will even bother.
|
| As far as I could tell, this was never about money for ARM. It
| was about control over their licensees and the products they
| developed. Control which they could turn into money later.
| eigenform wrote:
| It always seemed like [from ARM's point of view]: "oh, you're
| going to sell way more parts doing laptop SoCs with the
| license instead of servers... if we'd known that before, we
| would've negotiated a different license where we get a bigger
| cut"
| tiahura wrote:
| My understanding was that the central issue was whether the Nuvia
| "modify" license "transferred" to Qualcomm. If so, wouldn't that
| be a legal issue to be resolved by MSJ? Why was this tried to a
| jury?
| phire wrote:
| Qualcomm already had a "modify" licence, back from when they
| were doing their own custom ARM cores.
|
| So the actual central issue was if Qualcomm had the right to
| transfer the technology developed under the Nuvia architecture
| license to the Qualcomm architecture license.
| fidotron wrote:
| To be precise, it now appears the dispute has moved as to
| whether Nuvia had the right to transfer things to Qualcomm.
|
| It strikes me as a surprising diversion to this, and I wonder
| how prepared for this outcome the respective teams were.
| mewse-hn wrote:
| Haven't read deeply into this particular dispute but Arm suing
| their own customers doesn't seem good for business. Especially
| since they lost.
| LeFantome wrote:
| Wow, this has been settled already? I mean, I am sure ARM will
| appeal.
|
| ARM did massive damage to their ecosystem for nothing. There will
| for sure be consequences of suing your largest customer.
|
| Lots of people that would have defaulted to licensing designed
| off ARM for whatever chips they have planned will now be
| considering RISC-V instead. ARM just accelerated the timeline for
| their biggest future competitor. Genius.
| bhouston wrote:
| RISC-V is not anywhere near competitive to ARM at the level
| that Qualcomm operates.
|
| I've written about that here:
| https://benhouston3d.com/blog/risc-v-in-2024-is-slow
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| Not everyone is trying to make a chip for a phone. There are
| plenty of low compute applications which just need
| _something_.
| boredatoms wrote:
| RISCV is an instruction set, but you compare ASICs
|
| If qualcomm changes instruction decoding over you'll likely
| see a dramatic difference
| fidotron wrote:
| Your otherwise on point piece contains the common
| misconception that ARM began in embedded systems. When they
| started they had a full computer system that had very
| competitive CPU performance for the time:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes
|
| They pivoted to embedded shortly after spinning off into a
| separate company.
| maximusdrex wrote:
| What a disaster for ARM. Qualcomm building out new chips
| targeting the pc market should have been a victory lap for ARM,
| not the source of a legal battle with their largest customer. Now
| potential customers might be a little more wary of ARMs licensing
| practices compared to the free RISC-V ISA.
| jasoneckert wrote:
| By the end of Day 3, it seemed quite clear that Qualcomm's legal
| team and position was far ahead of ARM's. I feel the following
| snippet sums up the whole week:
|
| "Qualcomm's counsel turned Arm's Piano analogy on its head. Arm
| compared its ISA to a Piano Keyboard design during the opening
| statement and used it throughout the trial. It claimed that no
| matter how big or small the Piano is, the keyboard design remains
| the same and is covered by its license. Qualcomm's counsel
| extended that analogy to show how ridiculous it would be to say
| that because you designed the keyboard, you own all the pianos in
| the world. Suggesting that is what Arm is trying to do."
|
| Source: https://www.tantraanalyst.com/ta/qualcomm-vs-arm-trial-
| day-3...
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