Will Qualcomm be without Snapdragon? Qualcomm may lose the right to develop Snapdragon chips due to dispute with ARM

ARM has cancelled Qualcomm's chip development licence, which could lead to a halt in the manufacture and sales of Snapdragon chips with custom Oryon cores.

Here's What We Know

The conflict began in 2021 when Qualcomm acquired chip development startup Nuvia, inheriting Nuvia's licensing agreements with ARM. ARM argued that Qualcomm should have renegotiated the contract because ARM did not agree to transfer its designs after buying Nuvia, but this did not happen. ARM has also said that if Qualcomm fails to comply with its demands, designs based on Nuvia's developments should be destroyed.

In anticipation of the trial in December, ARM suspended the licensing agreements with a 60-day cancellation notice. Qualcomm, for its part, considers ARM's actions anti-competitive and is confident of its rights.

If no agreement is reached, Qualcomm will have to stop selling Snapdragon 8 Elite and Snapdragon X series chips that use Oryon cores. The move could spur the development of Qualcomm and Google's RISC-V architecture to create a fairer mobile hardware ecosystem.

Source: Bloomberg