#Qualcomm chip design license

The conflict between Qualcomm and Arm took a significant turn as Arm reportedly revoked Qualcomm’s license to use its instruction set for chip design. The licensing dispute dates back to Qualcomm’s 2021 acquisition of Nuvia, a chip design firm whose Oryon CPUs were set to power upcoming Qualcomm SoCs. Arm argues that Nuvia’s designs, initially developed under an Arm license, cannot legally transfer to Qualcomm without explicit permission. Qualcomm counters that its agreement should cover all Nuvia activities, including ongoing chip design. If Arm follows through with this termination, Qualcomm will be barred from using Arm’s instruction set for custom designs but may still use Arm’s standard blueprints — a shift that could force delays and additional expenses as work already done may go to waste. In 2023, Qualcomm joined Google to develop a RISC-V-based Wear OS chip, signaling a possible future pivot. Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon Wear Elite, a new processor designed for smartwatches and other wearable devices, bringing on-device AI features along with improved performance and battery life. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon Wear Elite offers up to five times faster CPU performance and up to seven times better graphics performance compared with the previous Snapdragon W5+ Gen 2 chip. Read more in our articles including "Arm Cancels Qualcomm’s Chip Design License Amid Growing Dispute" and "Qualcomm announces Snapdragon Wear Elite chip for smartwatches".