Arm sues Qualcomm/Nuvia

[Jimmyjames]

Awkward…I’m sure it won’t slow their inevitable overtake of Apple Silicon.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1565097609844658177/

 

[Cmaier]

Here is the complaint.

Nuvia LOL

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273239/arm-vs-qualcomm-complaint.pdf

This is probably about money - Arm wants more money if qualcomm is going to use IP generated under the license to Nuvia. But the danger for qualcomm is they end up having to start from scratch with a cleanroom design. Or, even worse, this degenerates and qualcomm loses its own license.

 

[Yoused]

But the danger for qualcomm is they end up having to start from scratch with a cleanroom design. Or, even worse, this degenerates and qualcomm loses its own license.

Arm offers 2 types of licenses: TLAs (techology licenses that allow the use of Arm designs as-is) and ALAs (architecture licenses, which allow the holder to develop custom μarch). It appears that Qualcomm had a TLA but not the much less common ALA, and upon acquiring Nuvia, failed to properly notify/negotiate the license transfer, meaning Arm wants more money/other favors for Qualcomm to be able to use Nuvia-Arm cores in their stuff.

 

[Cmaier]

Arm offers 2 types of licenses: TLAs (techology licenses that allow the use of Arm designs as-is) and ALAs (architecture licenses, which allow the holder to develop custom μarch). It appears that Qualcomm had a TLA but not the much less common ALA, and upon acquiring Nuvia, failed to properly notify/negotiate the license transfer, meaning Arm wants more money/other favors for Qualcomm to be able to use Nuvia-Arm cores in their stuff.

According to the Complaint, qualcomm DOES have an ALA, and failed miserably in its attempts to use it.

 

[Cmaier]

 

[Yoused]

Well that is all messed up. It looks like Arm genuinely lacks a case here. It is hard to see how Nuvia's designs (have they even shipped at all?) are intimately linked to Nuvia's ALA such that the Qualcomm-Nuvia combined license would fail to cover them. Arm appears to be trying to level the field for all its licensees. I mean, if Q-N dominates the Arm landscape to the exclusion of all the other licensees.

 

[Cmaier]

Well that is all messed up. It looks like Arm genuinely lacks a case here. It is hard to see how Nuvia's designs (have they even shipped at all?) are intimately linked to Nuvia's ALA such that the Qualcomm-Nuvia combined license would fail to cover them. Arm appears to be trying to level the field for all its licensees. I mean, if Q-N dominates the Arm landscape to the exclusion of all the other licensees.

Take a look at the complaint.

It seems that the issue is that the ALA with Nuvia specifically excludes any right for an acquiring company to use any of the IP generated under the ALA. The complaint seems to hint at the idea that the help that Nuvia got is help that it wouldn’t have given Qualcomm, or that the help That Nuvia got would have cost Qualcomm more. Or something.

What’s clear is that the two ALA’s are not the same. Assuming the terms of the Nuvia ALA say what Arm says they say, then Arm definitely would have a case.

 

[Colstan]

It seems that the issue is that the ALA with Nuvia specifically excludes any right for an acquiring company to use any of the IP generated under the ALA. The complaint seems to hint at the idea that the help that Nuvia got is help that it wouldn’t have given Qualcomm, or that the help That Nuvia got would have cost Qualcomm more. Or something.

I was half-expecting this to involve your old colleague, trade secrets guy, but it sounds like this is more broad than a single individual. From a layman's perspective, it appears like Nuvia has a habit of taking other company's work, not getting permission or providing compensation, and then hashing it out in court later?

 

[Cmaier]

I was half-expecting this to involve your old colleague, trade secrets guy, but it sounds like this is more broad than a single individual. From a layman's perspective, it appears like Nuvia has a habit of taking other company's work, not getting permission or providing compensation, and then hashing it out in court later?

No idea what Nuvia‘s habits are. But in this case it seems to be a simple contract dispute. Arm seems to claim that whatever their agreement was with Nuvia, it meant that any company that bought Nuvia was obligated to throw away all of Nuvia’s Arm work and start over. I’m sure Qualcomm has its own story to tell, and we don’t know have the actual text of the agreement.

It does seem like Qualcomm should have been aware of these issues before they bought Nuvia, but who knows.

 

[KingOfPain]

It appears that Qualcomm had a TLA but not the much less common ALA

Qualcomm definitely had/have an ALA, but I'm not sure what the current state is here. They've definitely produced their own non-Cortex-A cores:
Krait for ARMv7 and Kryo for ARMv8:

Comparison of ARMv7-A processors - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Comparison of Armv8-A processors - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I certainly knew about the Krait core, because my old Fire TV had four of those.
I forgot about Kryo and had to check first. But that was probably due to the fact that Qualcomm was so surprised about Apple's announcement of the 64-bit A8 (as practicly everyone else was) that they had to use "off-the-shelf" Cortex-A cores for quite a while, because they had no custom design in the pipeline.

 

[Yoused]

Qualcomm was so surprised about Apple's announcement of the 64-bit A8 (as practicly everyone else was)

That was more surprising than the announcement of the 64-bit A7 the previous year?

 

[KingOfPain]

That was more surprising than the announcement of the 64-bit A7 the previous year?

Oops, I mixed up which one was the first Apple Silicon processor with AArch64. You are right of course.
And I should know better: My old iPad 4 was the last one with a 32-bit processor, the A6X.
(And I should know that "practically" isn't spelled "practicly". I definitely wasn't fully awake yet...)

 

[Yoused]

I think the thing about A7 was the core μarch, which was designed by the Intrinsity/Apple hardware team with 6-wide issue and a large ROB, which was not what anyone else was doing in mobile space. Looks like Apple were aiming toward M* nine years ago.

 

[KingOfPain]

Yeah, I think as soon as the A7 was revealed, I said: OK, I want an ARM MacBook now. (I don't think the name "Apple Silicon" was as prominent back then.)
Most people were thinking of ARM as the "embedded processor", but I had an Acorn RiscPC at home and knew that the CPU was designed for computers first and more or less by accident became interresting for the embedded market.

The 64-bit architecture wasn't a surprise either. I think it was introduced under the codename "Eagle" at least two years prior and there already were core designs from ARM Ltd., but for some reason no one seemed to be using them yet.
And then Steven Jobs said in his keynote: Here is the new iPhone, BTW, it's using a 64-bit processor and you can order it tomorrow.
You could almost hear the jaws of the competitors (especially Qualcomm) drop to the floor.

 

[Cmaier]

Yeah, I think as soon as the A7 was revealed, I said: OK, I want an ARM MacBook now. (I don't think the name "Apple Silicon" was as prominent back then.)
Most people were thinking of ARM as the "embedded processor", but I had an Acorn RiscPC at home and knew that the CPU was designed for computers first and more or less by accident became interresting for the embedded market.

The 64-bit architecture wasn't a surprise either. I think it was introduced under the codename "Eagle" at least two years prior and there already were core designs from ARM Ltd., but for some reason no one seemed to be using them yet.
And then Steven Jobs said in his keynote: Here is the new iPhone, BTW, it's using a 64-bit processor and you can order it tomorrow.
You could almost hear the jaws of the competitors (especially Qualcomm) drop to the floor.

at the time Arm 64-bit was for servers. The main benefit of 64-bit was presumed to be address space, and nobody needed to address that much memory on a phone. So everyone was shocked when apple positioned the iphone the way others would position laptops or desktops. And, of course, 64-bit does have performance benefits, at least for some workloads.

 

[KingOfPain]

Unfortunately, I seem to have deleted the link by now, but I once read an article, where a former Apple engineer claimed that Apple actually tasked ARM with creating AArch64 and also had certain input, which might also explain why they were much quicker on the draw.
Apart from the 64 bit, which isn't really necessary for a phone (yet; at least I don't think there is any phone with more than 4 GB of RAM), the main advantage of AArch64 compared to AArch32 is the number of registers and a more classical instruction set with some modern touch-ups. I once thought of doing a comparison, but so far I've been to lazy to do it; from a quick overview AArch64 has a lot more in common with early desktop-RISC processors than AArch32.

Ars Technica also has an article on that news now:

Arm sues Qualcomm, wants it to “destroy” Nuvia’s pre-acquisition CPU designs

Arm says Qualcomm's Nuvia acquisition is a breach of its license terms.

arstechnica.com

 

[Yoused]

And then Steven Jobs said in his keynote: Here is the new iPhone, BTW, it's using a 64-bit processor and you can order it tomorrow.

I am really sorry about being so pedantic, but this is also kind of interesting. Steve Jobs died in the Fall of 2011; the iPhone 5S was released in September of '13. The interestingly thing is that we all can see him, in that damn black turtleneck, saying those exact words.

 

[throAU]

I am really sorry about being so pedantic, but this is also kind of interesting. Steve Jobs died in the Fall of 2011; the iPhone 5S was released in September of '13. The interestingly thing is that we all can see him, in that damn black turtleneck, saying those exact words.

Yeah whatever happened to surprise apple product announcements and Steve saying "Orders open TODAY!".

Rather than the standard now of... "coming in the fall" or whatever.

 

[KingOfPain]

I am really sorry about being so pedantic, but this is also kind of interesting. Steve Jobs died in the Fall of 2011; the iPhone 5S was released in September of '13. The interestingly thing is that we all can see him, in that damn black turtleneck, saying those exact words.

Oops, aparently Steven Job's reality distortion field is still active, which led me to believe that it was him presenting. Thanks for the correction.

 

[mr_roboto]

Yeah, I think as soon as the A7 was revealed, I said: OK, I want an ARM MacBook now. (I don't think the name "Apple Silicon" was as prominent back then.)
Most people were thinking of ARM as the "embedded processor", but I had an Acorn RiscPC at home and knew that the CPU was designed for computers first and more or less by accident became interresting for the embedded market.

The 64-bit architecture wasn't a surprise either. I think it was introduced under the codename "Eagle" at least two years prior and there already were core designs from ARM Ltd., but for some reason no one seemed to be using them yet.

They simply weren't ready. ARM Holdings often discloses core designs long before they're ready for customers to begin designing with them.

Apple shipped A7 in volume about a year before Cortex-A53 and A57 began sampling in SoCs. Apple probably began detailed design of their 64-bit core before Arm did.