Tantra Analyst

Many readers of EE Times will very likely be familiar with the ongoing legal tussle between Arm and Qualcomm, which had its day in court last December, with Qualcomm coming out on top. Since the trial, there have been many significant developments in that case. Additionally, Qualcomm has filed a new, related (but separate) case against Arm.

Next steps for the current trial

In the December trial (see daily blogs on the court trial here), held in a Delaware court, the jury decided in favor of Qualcomm in two of the three questions, which cleared the company of breach of the Nuvia Architecture License Agreement (ALA) and allowed the company to sell products with Nuvia technology through its own ALA. But the jury was deadlocked on one question: “Did Nuvia breach its ALA with Arm?” The parties and the judge continue to discuss how to move forward.

Arm has publicly said that it will ask to declare this a “mistrial” and request a full retrial. Being in court during the trial and watching Judge Maryellen Noreika’s reactions to the case, I doubt whether she will entertain a full retrial request. She has even ordered mandatory mediation between the parties before seeing them back in court. Arm also has the option to appeal the judgment.

This trial’s discovery and witness testimony have become a treasure trove of information in many aspects. Referring to some of the statements from Arm witnesses, Qualcomm claims that Arm did not comply with the ALA requirement of safeguarding Nuvia’s confidential information, even using that in its products. The testimony from a couple of Arm employees indicated that they did not get any instructions to destroy Nuvia’s confidential information after Arm unilaterally canceled the license.

In fact, there was evidence that Arm engineers ran a digital comparison of Nuvia’s confidential configuration file against a configuration file provided by Qualcomm for one of Qualcomm’s custom CPUs, in direct breach of ALA provisions. Additionally, Arm is said to have incorporated certain Nuvia-suggested confidential improvements to its coherent mesh network feature.    

Further, under a legal doctrine called “unclean hands,” Qualcomm claims that since Arm itself did not comply with the ALA confidentiality requirements, it does not have a basis to claim that Nuvia breached the same contract by not destroying Arm’s confidential information. This motion was filed on Jan. 29, 2025, and the trial should be coming up in 2026.

I believe this “unclean hands” claim significantly weakens Arm’s argument, specifically regarding the undecided question and even the full retrial or the appeal.

Fallout of CEO testimony and leaked plans of making own chips

During the court testimony, Qualcomm’s lawyer asked Arm CEO Rene Haas quite a few questions about Arm building its own chips and whether Qualcomm is Arm’s competitor. Haas answered that Arm had thought about building chips, which was a surprise for many in the industry (including me) but denied that Arm and Qualcomm were competitors as in both companies were not building the same products to sell to the same customers. Lo and behold, within two months of that testimony, Financial Times reported that Arm is working on its own data center chip, and that social media giant Meta might be the likely first customer. More interestingly, on the same day, Reuters reported that Arm was actively hunting for chip design talent from its licensees weeks before the testimony.

This was a double whammy for the vast Arm ecosystem. First, industry leaders, especially the Arm licensees, were surprised to hear Arm’s intention to develop its own chip. Second, very shortly after its CEO categorically said they were not competitors to Qualcomm (a licensee), the news of the chip development came. Knowing the ins and outs of the semiconductor industry and how long it takes to design a chip, it is very clear that Haas knew the chip plans when he gave that testimony. I think Judge Noreika might remember it and consider it when deciding the course of the trial.

Qualcomm files a new case against Arm

After the court trial, Qualcomm filed a new case against Arm on Jan. 3, 2025, claiming that the latter is withholding deliverables required by its ALA. This was specifically for Qualcomm’s custom core designs based on Nuvia technology. Qualcomm says that since these deliverables were solely within Arm’s knowledge and control, it had no way of knowing what was withheld and for how long.

Qualcomm also claims that Arm misrepresented the facts about the earlier case to Qualcomm’s customers, creating a scenario that casts doubts on Qualcomm’s ability to deliver the products that it promised to its customers. Qualcomm also alleges that Arm sent and leaked its letter of notice of cancellation of ALA to coincide with the latter’s high-profile annual conference, Snapdragon Summit, in 2024 to inflict business harm. This cancellation notice has now been withdrawn.

In essence, Qualcomm’s new case against Arm is a combination of claims of anti-competitive practices, breach of ALA requirements and obstruction of business. The trial for this case is expected in March 2026.

Final thoughts

The legal war between the two companies continues. Although settlement is always possible, this relationship has too many dimensions and considerations, making the resolution very complex and messy. Those considerations include, from Qualcomm’s side, moving its entire portfolio to custom cores, which takes time. It is not clear whether it makes sense to design custom cores for all its product lines, especially for the mass market, cost-sensitive part of the product portfolio. What will its strategy be after 2033, when the current Arm ALA expires, and others?

From Arm’s side, unwinding many ALAs to increase its revenue and value, designing its own chips, competing against and upsetting its own licensee ecosystem, bracing for the rising RISC-V ISA, and more. There are many unknowns, too; for example, consider Arm’s rumored data center chip for Meta. Knowing that Nuvia was working on such chips and collaborated with Arm, there is a possibility of legal consequences. Suffice it to say there is much more to come in this saga.

Prakash Sangam is the founder and principal at Tantra Analyst, a leading boutique research and advisory firm. He is a recognized expert in 5G, Wi-Fi, AI, Cloud and IoT. To read articles like this and get an up-to-date analysis of the latest mobile and tech industry news, sign-up for our monthly newsletter at TantraAnalyst.com/Newsletter, or listen to our Tantra’s Mantra podcast.