Arm Files Lawsuit Against Qualcomm and Nuvia for Breach of License Agreements

[satcomer]

It comes as shipping charges have gone through the roof! If you bought something online almost never noticed that shipping cost have almost doubled sense the inflation! Take that because many Truckers too wouldn't take the jab and their company fired them all and that doesn't help in ongoing shipping rise! I imagine this hurting business to and now ARM wants ti raise prices that started this way between the two companies after talks for new contract broke down!

 

[deconstruct60]

ARM hates Qualcomm for 2 reasons:

1. Qualcomm lobbied heavily against the ARM + Nvidia deal

Not really all that true. Name one major Arm licence who was aproving of that deal. Qualcomm openly talked about it more, but nobody liked that deal at all. It is more accurate that Softbank hates Qualcomm. Arm was NOT going to get the money. Softbank was!!!!

Nividia's offer to GROSSLY over pay for Arm was warped . Nvidia couldn't make that money back with current practices. So either Nvidia was going to 'eat' all of that overpay to the benefit of all of their competitors..... or Nvidia was going to try to make the other licenses eat the cost of the overpayment. Most license holders with common sense had a pretty strong inkling of which way that was going to fall.

Qualcomm did more lobbing in the pressure. Many of the others did the lobbying where it really mattered (with the regulators ).

2. Qualcomm's Nuvia is a major threat to ARM's business.

Arm's business worked back when Qualcomm was actively using their Arch license to do their own cores back in the 32-bit era. Arm would have to rebalance their portfolio of Arch license holders versus IP license holders but it could work. Short term though Nvuia is a threat to wreck some kind of "over pay by A LOT" liquidity event for Softbank. This is more so about Softbank than Arm.

And is also about Qualcomm dealing from the bottom of the deck and playing three-card-monty with the contracts ( blend the most favorable terms out of the both the Nuvia and Qualcomm contracts into a new deal where they unilaterally cherry pick what is best for Qualcomm. That really isn't about Nuvia's tech (which isn't really proven good anyway) as it about legal hocus pocus. )

ARM is trying its hardest to prevent Nuvia from coming to the market. If it does come to market, ARM wants to a far bigger slice of Qualcomm's profits than before. Hence, ARM sued Qualcomm to block Nuvia designs.

Nuvia designs are being moved by Qualcomm out of one contract into another one. So yeah they are stopping the design. It is the leverage point. Arm didn't move the IP from one contract to another. The triggering root cause on the dispute here is Qualcomm; not Arm.

Whether Nuvia IP is good , bad, or mediocre is really immaterial.

Qualcomm lobbied the US government to block the Nvidia deal. It's very obvious why. Qualcomm has very high custom ARM-core ambitions from their purchase of Nuvia. They want to be the Apple Silicon of the PC/Android world.

The farce is that Qualcomm solely lobbied the government.

Nvidia owning ARM would have injected resources into stock ARM cores and made stock ARM cores more competitive against whatever Qualcomm is planning to do.

Not necessarily. That was much of the spin that Nvidua was slinging. But that wasn't necessarily going to be the truth. Besides before the deal got fully in motion Nvidia bought a huge chunk of arch license so they could do Grace SoCs. That was a cash infusion that helped pay for better Neoverse core R&D.

The Arm HAS a basic mechanism to allow customers to contribute to better future cores. It is a contract R&D company. The whole business is getting money from outside sources to pay for more R&D.

It really wasn't about 'better cores' . It was about Softbank getting bailed out of a deal they paid way too much for. It was about trying to float 'hot' stock options at Arm employees for retention that were outside the baseline that a contract R&D company can do ( more so on the end product, high mark up side) , and perhaps Arm could get off this hamster wheel of having to justify a stock valuation that is disconnected from their core business (i.e., many based on hype).

The notion that Nvidia was going to be everyone else's 'sugar daddy' and hand out super cheap , highly competitive stuff that would eat away at Nvidia's product dominance is another one of those hype stories .

Qualcomm wants stock ARM cores to not be competitive in the near future which would make them the defacto high-end consumer ARM supplier.

Ampere switching from Arm Neoverse to in house Arch lience cores is likely a bigger threat to high end consumer future of Arm than anything that Qualcomm is doing. Arm having a grounding in high mobility and a grounding in server class is/was very likely to lead to something covering the middle ( consumer hi) anyway. Arm has had the X class cortex cores for a while.

Up until Microsoft got their act together with Windows there was really nothing much Arm could to force the issue unilaterally on the consumer PC placement.

 

[deconstruct60]

As Dylan Patel said a couple of months ago, it looks like ARM will soon change its licensing policy.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1660502977382334466

That is the same "Make money fast ... pump up the IPO price " license change model leaked months ago.
Have a $80 Soc in a $800 Smartphone ... well you owe ARM 10% ( $80 vs $8 ) hence Arm's stock price should jump by a large amount. Arm's stock valuation should be based on pimping off the value add of others (stuff in the rest of the phone) , not their own work.


That likely would just be a long term term problem for Arm viablity as a company. Short to intermediate term there would be a flurry of 'bigger fool buying' as the stock went through a pump-and-dump cycle that might last a while. As the customers dry up though ... it will likely die though.

 

[dmccloud]

It comes as shipping charges have gone through the roof! If you bought something online almost never noticed that shipping cost have almost doubled sense the inflation! Take that because many Truckers too wouldn't take the jab and their company fired them all and that doesn't help in ongoing shipping rise! I imagine this hurting business to and now ARM wants ti raise prices that started this way between the two companies after talks for new contract broke down!

None of what you listed there has any bearing on the ARM/Qualcomm dispute, so why even make those comments?

 

[satcomer]

None of what you listed there has any bearing on the ARM/Qualcomm dispute, so why even make those comments?

Because this happen before! Arm was on media about a year ago talking about raising licensing fees! So when the new Contract talks start and Arm lists their new prices Qualcomm said NO!, Hence the suit!

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Because this happen before! Arm was on media about a year ago talking about raising licensing fees! So when the new Contract talks start and Arm lists their new prices Qualcomm said NO!, Hence the suit!

Do you have a link to that? As far as I know, the first to talk about ARM's potential licensing model change was Qualcomm in the trial.

According to the updated Qualcomm counterclaim, after 2024, Arm is no longer going to license their CPUs to semiconductor companies such as Qualcomm under technology license agreements (TLAs). Instead, Arm will only license to the device-makers. Arm is allegedly telling OEMs that the only way to get Arm-based chips will be to accept Arm’s new licensing terms. Qualcomm claims that Arm is lying to Qualcomm’s OEM partners about Qualcomm’s licensing terms.

Arm Changes Business Model – OEM Partners Must Directly License From Arm

No More External GPU, NPU, or ISP’s Allowed In Arm-Based SOCs

www.semianalysis.com

 

[TechnoMonk]

So Nuvia does many innovations and now ARM says that Nuvia own products should be thrown into the trash can. What a joke.

Now you got patents to kill other patents, what a system.

Funny thing is, ARM is only harming themselves as Windows will be less likely to embrace ARM without companies like Qualcomm.

What makes it even more funny, Qualcomm is a partner of ARM, so what is ARM doing?

Looks like ARM spent more time babying so-called Nuvia innovations, hence they asking to get paid.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Or that some folks at Qualcomm screwed up. If they had paid $950M for Nuvia then handing over $50M to Arm would not have cost anything more ( 950+50 = 1,000M So is 925+75 . )

Qualcomm paid the lawyers and the investment bankers "tens of millions" also to close the deal. Now they go 'cheap' ? $10-30M ('tens of millions) is just around 1%-3% of the deal cost. Qualcomm themselves in the complaint says that they sank another $100-200M into development costs in the year they were bickering over licensing adjustments. So another $10-40M is going to implode the value proposition? Spent 10x that much because Nuvia really didn't have a working product when threw $1B at them.

Yes ARM needs/wants more money. But it also the case that Qualcomm also overpaid (and now someone is gone Scrooge McDuck trying to lower the profile of just how much they overpaid. ).




Which only points to how paying a full $1B for Nuvia was a dubious move. There were essentially critical pieces to the "solution" there that were not even Nuvia property and yet paid a price premium for what they (Nuvia) didn't own. This should have been a point realized before the Nuvia deal close for pay a lower acquisition price point.





I suspect this got complicated by the Nvidia deal. Qualcomm tries to spin this as solely as "revenge" , but Arm probably didn't want to use this 'hammer' earlier because it would disrupt the Nvidia deal trying to go through. So they didn't cut them off earlier. ( cooperating with Qualcomm on development to help pacify their complaints. A factor Qualcomm probably also knew would come into play. They could 'stretch' the license because Arm 'couldn't complain' as loudly. Qualcomm acting like they are generally a bunch of 'Boy & Girl Scouts' here on licensing is a bit much.). It is hard to tell just how quickly they would have dropped the hammer if didn't have to tip-toe around license enforcement actions.

Buying Nuvia may not end up being well for Qualcomm. I doubt if we see a Nuvia/Qualcomm designed mobile processors for few years. They may have better luck with low power data center server chips or desktop/laptop processors.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

I doubt if we see a Nuvia/Qualcomm designed mobile processors for few years. They may have better luck with low power data center server chips or desktop/laptop processors.

Qualcomm will use the Nuvia-based CPU core for everything.

Qualcomm Oryon will be integrated across a wide portfolio of Snapdragon powered products starting with PCs and including smartphones, digital cockpits, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, extended reality, and infrastructure networking solutions.

Qualcomm Oryon CPU: a custom CPU at the center of next-generation premium experiences on Snapdragon platforms

Qualcomm Oryon, a new custom CPU core, will be integrated across a wide portfolio of Snapdragon powered products starting with PCs and including smartphones, digital cockpits, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, extended reality, and infrastructure networking solutions.

www.qualcomm.com

 

[deconstruct60]

Do you have a link to that? As far as I know, the first to talk about ARM's potential licensing model change was Qualcomm in the trial.

Arm Changes Business Model – OEM Partners Must Directly License From Arm

No More External GPU, NPU, or ISP’s Allowed In Arm-Based SOCs

www.semianalysis.com

Decent chance Qualcomm is engaging in exaggeration here (their lawyers can't , well shouldn't if want to keep their bar license, lie to the court) . Since this "amended" claim the following two things have happened.

Samsung extended their GPU contract with AMD.

Samsung Electronics and AMD Extend Strategic IP Licensing Agreement To Bring AMD Radeon™ Graphics to Future Mobile Platforms

Companies broaden scope of mobile graphics collaboration to bring leadership AMD Radeon graphics technology to expanded portfolio of Samsung Exynos SoCs

news.samsung.com

MediaTek and Nvidia signed up to work together on GPUs also.

MediaTek to Use Nvidia GPU Tech for Smartphone, Windows-on-Arm SoCs: Report

MediaTek could license Nvidia’s GPU architecture.

www.tomshardware.com

There is a chance that Arm is going to come up with a new license path where if 80-95+% of the IP on the die is straight from Arm and that pay at the fab. Cores , interconnect, gpu , memory controller , AI/ML accelerator, image processor all from Arm that the terms are different. Would make even more sense if these were "PC" targeted implementations were the on die and cellular modem was dropped ( so far , far easier to get to the point where might be taking 90+% of whole die almost completely from Arm's IP. )


All the more so if Arm has worked with a fab vendor and design tool vendors already have the bulk of the layout done . Arm does do demo implementations

"... What's happening now is that Arm has spent the past six months or so designing a complete high-end processor to, as the FT put it, “demonstrate the power and capabilities of its designs to the wider market.” ..."

Arm creates samples of high-end processors for customers

Not for a long while at least, anyway

www.theregister.com

With things like chiplets and UCIe coming it wouldn't be too much of a leap in 2024-2025 where Arm just sold the base chiplet/tile largely unchanged to customers and that any very substantive, but limited, customizations be offloaded to yet another chiplet (e.g., some narrow specialized accelerator ).

Arm taking a fixed percentage of the whole SoC device package would be far more tractable if 90+ % of the SoC package function was theirs anyway. Arm wouldn't pick which specific fab , and packaging, vendor had to use or all of the customizations . Technically not making the die for customers to buy, but doing almost all of the work.

But if Arm was killing off licensing just the CPU cores and was going to force folks to eat their GPUs , AI, image processors no matter what ... why would Samsung and Mediatek be signing up to get alternative GPUs several years out?

The Qualcomm story smells a lot more like what Qualcomm sales critters do . Qualcomm found some rouge salesperson inside of Arm's rogue China subsidiary making a 'hard ball' sales pitch to close a deal ... wouldn't be surprising. But also pretty good chance was way off the script that Arm (the entity being counter sued) laid down.
The supposed 'threat' outlined in Qualcomm's account " ARM has also threatened at least one OEM that, if the OEM does not do so, ARM will go on to license the OEM's larger competitors instead " 'instead?' ... errr , when does Arm not sell to 'everybody'? Qualcomm goes on in the account to say "ARM has done this despite already having approached the OEM's competitors" ... eh duh. Since Arm normally sells to everyone why is that surprising and why would have the OEM even remotely believed the "instead" threat ?



As "3nm" , "2nm" , etc get more expensive Arm doing with 'demo' chip implementations is going to get more and more and more expensive. At some point those demos are going to get so expensive that probably will need to sell a few of them even to get to breakeven; at least for all by the very smallest die sizes. Something that is tipping into the general PC class with high user utility is likely going to push the die into at least the top end of the range for 'small die' (if not into medium size).

"2nm" and lower fab processes ( with non shrinking SRAM) may force more chiplets into the non-embedded controller package solution space. Again at that point Arm staying completely out of the game of die delivery doesn't make much sense. Microsoft juggles selling both Surface and supplying system builders who just take Windows.
But all of Arm's cores and IP going to that kind of set up. That also isn't going to be cretible because lots of markets have limits on package costs ( and chiplets and super bleeding edge fab processes cost more).

Pretty good chance Arm is going to need another licensing track than just classic TLA ( forged into the good old days of only monolithic dies). That new track is getting muddled in a variation of the 'telephone' game into Arm is going to completely ban selecting subsets of IP.

 

[deconstruct60]

Qualcomm will use the Nuvia-based CPU core for everything.

Qualcomm Oryon CPU: a custom CPU at the center of next-generation premium experiences on Snapdragon platforms

Qualcomm Oryon, a new custom CPU core, will be integrated across a wide portfolio of Snapdragon powered products starting with PCs and including smartphones, digital cockpits, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, extended reality, and infrastructure networking solutions.

www.qualcomm.com

A matter of 'when' for everything.

It looks like primarily just the announcement of their "plain" M1/M2 competitor isn't coming until Fall ( September-October) time frame, some limited 'soft launch' around that intro, and substantive product not until , at best, CES 2024 ( or later 1H 2024).

" ... Qualcomm's CEO Cristiano Amon told Joanna Stern that their new chip should be considered an "Apple-Compete" for the Microsoft ecosystem. ..."

Qualcomm's CEO admits that their next-gen chips designed to to compete with Apple for the Microsoft Ecosystem will come to market in 2024

Qualcomm announced the branding of the next-generation of processors that derived from their acquisition of NUVIA back in November 2022 as "Oryon." The expectation of the arrival of the new chips continuatly slides.

www.patentlyapple.com

For Windows PCs they don't need as good of a "E core" as they would need to actually displace Arm stuff from the smartphones. It certainly isn't going to disrupt their whole line up

8cx
8

perhaps

but going to get the 7 and down to 6 series and at those price points. VR headset and other specialized SoC packages probably not either. I wouldn't bet on that for 2024 at all. Better chance will get a new 9-series entry ( even farther from smartphone like mobile constraints) than a 6. The breadth of the product line that Qualcomm have to replace is substantially much bigger than what Apple is doing.


Windows PCs, Chromebooks , Android tablets I think are more likely targets over the intermediate term .


only if Arm doesn't hit them with an injunction that grinds all of it to a halt.

 

[deconstruct60]

Buying Nuvia may not end up being well for Qualcomm. I doubt if we see a Nuvia/Qualcomm designed mobile processors for few years. They may have better luck with low power data center server chips or desktop/laptop processors.

The "M-series" competitor is on track to arrive in volume in 2024. But if it is a M1 like performance level it will get squeezed from two sides. Likely Apple will have M3 and it won't compete well against that. Also likely AMD (and somewhat likely Intel the longer stretch into 2024) will have offerings that also do a better job of covering the M1 like performance level also. For example,

AMD Claims New Laptop Chip Is 30% Faster Than M1 Pro, Promises Up to 30 Hours of Battery Life

At CES this week, AMD announced a suite of new chips for notebooks and desktop computers, with one notable announcement being the company's new...

www.macrumors.com

AMD/Intel don't need something that is much better in the benchmarks as much as something that is 'good enough' and lean on the low friction of not needing to make application binary adjustments.

Data Center is likely worse at this point. Ampere Computing has about "every but Amazon" as customers at this point in terms of scale. Throw in lots of folks trying to duplicate Amazon and bring a tweaked Neoverse Arm solution "in-house' ( microsoft azure , etc working on custom chips). That window is even more closed. Arm's 'off the shelf' Neoverse is very competitive (and cheaper if can crank out enough volume) and there are substantive other competitors (Ampere is about to rotate some of their sales onto their own custom cores). The "apple pee" that Nuvia brings isn't necessarily a bit win for those kind of workloads.

Presuming Ampere does a gradual rotate off of Neoverse onto their own design (so Arm can shift Neoverse license sales volume to other customers ) and get two baseline server implementations with enough user base to fund forward R&D the place for a 3rd is likely pretty small. At least for general sales to system vendors. ( going to be folks who build their own custom server stuff for niches. ( e.g., as some point Nvidia doing a more custom cores for some of their own datacenter products.) )


The time that Qualcomm took to redirect Nuvia cores into the laptop/desktop zone probably closed much of the chance of getting a 'foot in the door' for the datacenter market. In contrast, AMD and Intel are closing the door relatively much slower. AMD only now putting more resources into the laptop space as a priority and Intel still trying to clean up the mess they generated over last 4-5 years. Drop below a 45W budget for a laptop and there is still a window. And it is a much bigger user/units-sold pool to sell into. So far more room for more players.


Nuvia/Qualcomm roll out to the smartphone segment of Qualcomm's SoC roll out is more of a 'bulk problem' that will take years than anything else. Even without the lawsuit, that would take lots of time and in many cases even more cost constrained. ( Qualcomm can't slap a high overhead of trying to recoup that $1B outlay on that part of the market). In the 6 series SoC market segment the headset makes and customers want something more affordable , not particularly much faster ( fast enough to do basic stuff).

 

[TechnoMonk]

Qualcomm will use the Nuvia-based CPU core for everything.

Qualcomm Oryon CPU: a custom CPU at the center of next-generation premium experiences on Snapdragon platforms

Qualcomm Oryon, a new custom CPU core, will be integrated across a wide portfolio of Snapdragon powered products starting with PCs and including smartphones, digital cockpits, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, extended reality, and infrastructure networking solutions.

www.qualcomm.com

The "M-series" competitor is on track to arrive in volume in 2024. But if it is a M1 like performance level it will get squeezed from two sides. Likely Apple will have M3 and it won't compete well against that. Also likely AMD (and somewhat likely Intel the longer stretch into 2024) will have offerings that also do a better job of covering the M1 like performance level also. For example,

AMD Claims New Laptop Chip Is 30% Faster Than M1 Pro, Promises Up to 30 Hours of Battery Life

At CES this week, AMD announced a suite of new chips for notebooks and desktop computers, with one notable announcement being the company's new...

www.macrumors.com

AMD/Intel don't need something that is much better in the benchmarks as much as something that is 'good enough' and lean on the low friction of not needing to make application binary adjustments.

Data Center is likely worse at this point. Ampere Computing has about "every but Amazon" as customers at this point in terms of scale. Throw in lots of folks trying to duplicate Amazon and bring a tweaked Neoverse Arm solution "in-house' ( microsoft azure , etc working on custom chips). That window is even more closed. Arm's 'off the shelf' Neoverse is very competitive (and cheaper if can crank out enough volume) and there are substantive other competitors (Ampere is about to rotate some of their sales onto their own custom cores). The "apple pee" that Nuvia brings isn't necessarily a bit win for those kind of workloads.

Presuming Ampere does a gradual rotate off of Neoverse onto their own design (so Arm can shift Neoverse license sales volume to other customers ) and get two baseline server implementations with enough user base to fund forward R&D the place for a 3rd is likely pretty small. At least for general sales to system vendors. ( going to be folks who build their own custom server stuff for niches. ( e.g., as some point Nvidia doing a more custom cores for some of their own datacenter products.) )


The time that Qualcomm took to redirect Nuvia cores into the laptop/desktop zone probably closed much of the chance of getting a 'foot in the door' for the datacenter market. In contrast, AMD and Intel are closing the door relatively much slower. AMD only now putting more resources into the laptop space as a priority and Intel still trying to clean up the mess they generated over last 4-5 years. Drop below a 45W budget for a laptop and there is still a window. And it is a much bigger user/units-sold pool to sell into. So far more room for more players.


Nuvia/Qualcomm roll out to the smartphone segment of Qualcomm's SoC roll out is more of a 'bulk problem' that will take years than anything else. Even without the lawsuit, that would take lots of time and in many cases even more cost constrained. ( Qualcomm can't slap a high overhead of trying to recoup that $1B outlay on that part of the market). In the 6 series SoC market segment the headset makes and customers want something more affordable , not particularly much faster ( fast enough to do basic stuff).

Totally agree. Qualcomm can plan to use, but is it enough? To stay ahead of competitors who are increasing performance every year by the time chips are sold in the wild.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Qualcomm can plan to use, but is it enough? To stay ahead of competitors who are increasing performance every year by the time chips are sold in the wild.

If ARM links its CPU cores with its GPU cores and other IP cores, Qualcomm may have no choice but to use its Oryon cores to differentiate itself from Mediatek.

A leaker reports that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 will be faster than M2.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1639770694631444480

 

[TechnoMonk]

If ARM links its CPU cores with its GPU cores and other IP cores, Qualcomm may have no choice but to use its Oryon cores to differentiate itself from Mediatek.

A leaker reports that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 will be faster than M2.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1639770694631444480

I will believe it when I see, by the time it’s pushed out of the gate we may already be at M3 or M4.

 

[deconstruct60]

If ARM links its CPU cores with its GPU cores and other IP cores, Qualcomm may have no choice but to use its Oryon cores to differentiate itself from Mediatek.

Qualcomm's world class leading modem wouldn't evaporate into nothing even if Arm went down that rathole. They have a clear differentiator, it is is what they are the primary leader in. In GPUs they are good (not bad) but not the primary leaders in the area. Qualcomm is doing very well now sharing cores with Mediatek. That isn't going to evaporate. Could they do better with Oryon cores? (if they are good sure). But that is a choice ( "no choice" is something different).

The running presumption is that these "all or nothing" Arm dies are going to come with zero interface to other dies. For the smartphone market in particular I don't see how that could even remotely possibly work. Arm isn't going to have a cellular modem. Apple has thrown over $1B at one years ago and still do not have a viable competitive one. Has is Arm going to get one and stuff it onto a monolithic die and make their customers 'eat it' ?

A leaker reports that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 will be faster than M2.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1639770694631444480

First, that is a plain 8 not a 8cx.

Drop down to N3E versus the M2's years older N5. Remains to be seen how much power consumption (Pref/Watt) they did versus the M2 . (Geekbench 5?) N3E just means it is going to ship that much later from now.
That multithreaded scores isn't a M2 'killer' ( 9100 vs 8853). It is lots better than a A16 ( 9100 vs 5500 ). If actually matching the power of the A16 and getting that score that is substantive. However, if this has now shifted to being more of a tablet (and up) chip not as much.

 

[deconstruct60]

" ... You can say farewell to Arm32 apps on Windows PCs. ... "


Windows 12 and Qualcomm Oryon processors will not support Arm32 apps | Windows Central


Probably not a big loss as decent number of 32 apps are WindowsRT retreads. Probably not good new if plan to lean heavily on the built-in x86 Win32 32-bit app translation abilities for high performance. (probably not getting much better).

x86-S proposal also looking to prune back 32 kernel level stuff. Not looking so hot for that faction looking to run 80-90's vintage , real mode apps on either architecture without a deep emulator.


(Andriod 32-bit apps on warning track also. Although Arm already did that with 500/700 cores. )

Constipation of clinging to the oldest, most crusty stuff possible is easing up a bit.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

First, that is a plain 8 not a 8cx.

Isn't Snapdragon 8 Qualcomm's SoC for phones and Snapdragon 8cx Qualcomm's SoC for notebooks?

In GPUs they are good (not bad) but not the primary leaders in the area. Qualcomm is doing very well now sharing cores with Mediatek. That isn't going to evaporate. Could they do better with Oryon cores? (if they are good sure). But that is a choice ( "no choice" is something different).

Qualcomm stated that ARM would not allow third-party GPUs, NPUs or ISPs in Arm-based SOCs.

ARM further stated that Qualcomm and other semiconductor manufacturers will also not be able to provide OEM customers with other components of SoCs (such as graphics processing units (“GPU”), neural processing units (“NPU”), and image signal processor (“ISP”)), because ARM plans to tie licensing of those components to the device-maker CPU license.

 

[deconstruct60]

Isn't Snapdragon 8 Qualcomm's SoC for phones and Snapdragon 8cx Qualcomm's SoC for notebooks?

Yes. To put things into better context the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 is not even out yet. Its characteristics are still being 'leaked'.


"... Revegnus suggests that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (SD8G3) chipset will be packing a large primary core in the shape of Arm's Cortex-X4 CPU with a reported maximum clock speed of 3.40 GHz. Leaks from the past have posited that the SD8G3 would feature a fairly standard 1x Large + 5x Big + 2x Small CPU core layout (with clocks predicted to be: large Cortex X4 at 3.2 GHz, big Cortex-A720 at 3.0 GHz, and small Cortex-A520 at 2.0 GHz). An insider source has provided Revegnus with additional information about two different CPU core configurations - 1+5+2 and 2+4+2 ..."

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Differing Core Clusters Revealed in Leak, NUVIA Phoenix-Based Gen 4 Hinted

A technology tipster has been dropping multiple tidbits this week about Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile chipset - this follows a leak (from a different source, going back to mid-April) about the next generation Adreno 750 GPU getting tuned up for a battle against Apple's Bionic A17...

www.techpowerup.com

If the multiple X4 variants leak is correct, then which gen 3 is in that table. The 1 X4 or 2 X4 version? If pick the 1 X4 then juicing the gap between gen 3 and gen 4.



Earlier this month:
"... An alleged Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Geekbench 5.4 result popped up earlier this year. Unfortunately, it was in the "too-good-to-be-true" territory as it outperformed the Apple A16 Bionic by quite a bit. Will it be able to defeat the TSMC N3B-based A17 Bionic, though? A new leak from Weibo answers that question. ..."

New Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Geekbench and AnTuTu scores emerge online

A leak from Weibo says the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 scores 2,723 and 7,525 in Geekbench 6's single and multi-core tests. In AnTuTu V9, the AP allegedly scores 1,712,271 points.

www.notebookcheck.net

The snapdragon 8 gen X is a Apple Axx competitor. So if someone throws out some rumor that the 8 is supposely slapping down the Mn (not Axx) , it is definitely a time to pause and think. Maybe the labels are not correct here.

And the fact gen 3 hasn't shipped , that means gen 4 is coming no where near soon ( Q4 2024? or later ? ).

What are the Phoenix I and M cores. If they roughly correspond to X4-class and 720-class cores then energy consumption of gen 4 may not be near what gen 3 is doing ( and 8 is shifting to a different target market that is different than where Apple is primarily aiming the Axx ). [ Apple has a 'plain' M , Mn Pro , Mn Max for the Mac market. Qualcomm could pretty easily shift to 8 , 8cx , 8dx and cover a similar space . ]

Qualcomm stated that ARM would not allow third-party GPUs, NPUs or ISPs in Arm-based SOCs.

That stuff is just multiple layers of hearsay. Qualcomm heard that someone else said that someone else said blah blah blah . Really should stop spinning it as if "Arm said". There is little evidence that Arm (the corporation) said this as oppose to some "Joe Isuzu" salesperson doing some hard sales tactic riff. There is likely some narrow nuggets of truth in there , but also decent chance it is not the whole truth. (that Qualcomm is cherry picking stuff to make Arm look 'mean and bad actor'. Which as I mentioned above is somewhat like the 'pot calling the kettle black'. Qualcomm much of the same tactics themselves. So are they looking in the mirror or actually talking about Arm? )

Again, why are Samsung and MediaTek recently signing GPU deals if non Arm GPUs are dead? Does Qualcomm's quote look 100% creditable as a 'universal' new license agreement in that context?

 

[Xiao_Xi]

why are Samsung and MediaTek recently signing GPU deals if non Arm GPUs are dead?

We have to wait a bit to see who is right. DigiTimes reported that MediaTek could use an Nvidia GPU in 2024, while FT reported that ARM would change its licensing terms from 2024.

MediaTek to adopt Nvidia GPU in flagship mobile chip

MediaTek is expected to integrate an Nvidia GPU into its next-generation flagship mobile processor as early as 2024, according to industry sources.

www.digitimes.com

Arm seeks to raise prices ahead of hotly anticipated IPO

SoftBank-owned group aims to charge more for each chip design in radical shake-up of business model

www.ft.com

Qualcomm may be forced to change future versions of 8/8cx as a result of the lawsuit and the change in licensing terms.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1660468181167935488

 

[deconstruct60]

Qualcomm may be forced to change future versions of 8/8cx as a result of the lawsuit and the change in licensing terms.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1660468181167935488

"cannot use its own ..." because they licensed a bigger block because that was all they could afford for a Plan B option at fixed costs ? Or there were no other options?

The smartphone market moving to a new paradigm where the celluar modems are disaggregated out of the CPU/GPU/AI core die makes lots of sense given the zero improvements for I/O , analog, and SRAM/cache going forward for a substantively long period of time.

The other hilarious part of this Qualcomm "we have got no options" is the part where Qualcomm claims they don't need the Nuvia arch license because they have their own for Smartphones. Well if you do , then do have an option that doesn't include Nuvia cores.

When Arm expanded the sale of Architectural licenses then didn't kill off the IP tech (TLA) licenses. I just don't see where TLA will get killed off completely when Arm introduces a new option. It may not be as cost competitive taking the bulk chiplet license( with more "ready to go" state and Qualcomm's rivals will be to pump out chips that have better band-for-the-buck ratios. And at some point a 'good enough' radio works for $100-400 smartphones. ) . Again really big doubts Qualcomm can tackle the 6 and 7 series with Nuvia cores ( and their associated overhead) any time soon. Qualcomm is likley still going to have to do some Arm deal for a subset of their line up. As long as that subset is in play a 'backstop' 8 probably wouldn't be too hard (or expensive).


It could be that Softbank is just taking Arm on a suicidal down side through a pump-and-dump move that will only pay off for Softbank. We'll see.

There is way too much movement in RISC-V to be so dumb to be manically focused on Qualcomm 'revenge' that throw the door wide open for RISC-V to eat Arm alive with this kind of childish behavior. For the bottom half of the smartphone market, a more total costs inexpensive SoC+modem combo would be far more market forces driven than "Qualcomm revenue" driven. And don't necessarily need relatively expensive , hyper low power/latency at highest perf/watt, 3D packaging to get there.

 

[senttoschool]

On a semi-related note, Nvidia's marketcap is now approaching $1 trillion. How pissed off are ARM employees that Qualcomm lobbied hard to block the acquisition?

 

[leman]

On a semi-related note, Nvidia's marketcap is now approaching $1 trillion. How pissed off are ARM employees that Qualcomm lobbied hard to block the acquisition?

Why would they be pissed? As if there would be any benefit for them…

 

[jdb8167]

Why would they be pissed? As if there would be any benefit for them…

Stock options?

 

[senttoschool]

Why would they be pissed? As if there would be any benefit for them…

Many reasons:

• Stock options/grants. ARM employees hold shares of ARM - which is usually how tech companies add additional compensation without using cash. Those shares would have been converted to Nvidia shares.
• Nvidia employees also get stock grants, which ARM employees are missing out on.
• Nvidia employees probably enjoy higher overall salaries and job security than ARM employees.
• Nvidia is also a public company, which means ARM employees would benefit from stock liquidity, allowing to sell their shares to buy a house and start a family, for example.

This would semi-explain the ferocity that ARM is going after one of its main customers, Qualcomm. Their employees are probably absolutely pissed off at a once-in-a-lifetime payout and to work for a company that is on the right side of tech trends. If I worked at ARM, I'd volunteer to spend weekends to help this lawsuit.

Huang quipped that everywhere he went to lobby for approval of his $40 billion attempt to buy Arm Ltd., he found that Amon [Qualcomm CEO] had already been there, arguing against the deal.

That night the two also endured an awkward photo shoot as Amon handed Huang his award.

Two weeks ago, Huang officially gave up on Nvidia’s pursuit of Arm, acknowledging regulators’ overwhelming opposition to the deal. It certainly didn’t help that much of the industry, Qualcomm included, argued that the deal was anti-competitive to anyone who would listen.