Forget buying Intel, Qualcomm just had its Arm license canceled, says report

Arm has reportedly revoked Qualcomm's license to make CPUs based on its architecture, giving it 60 days notice until it's terminated.

US chip maker Qualcomm has reportedly been put on notice by Arm that it’s going to have its license revoked, meaning it wouldn’t be able to make its own chips based on the Arm architecture any more. The reported move follows a raft of speculation that Qualcomm has been looking to buy Intel, which makes CPUs based on the more complex x86 architecture.

While Qualcomm’s prime market is smartphones and mobile devices, the CPU manufacturer has been making waves in the gaming laptop business lately, with products such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus range featuring up to 12 cores and surprisingly capable GPUs. Qualcomm might not make the very best gaming laptop chips right now, but its silicon is being taken seriously by big laptop makers looking to make power-efficient machines.

This latest report comes from Bloomberg, which claims to have seen a document saying that Arm has given Qualcomm a 60-day notice period that it’s going to have its architectural license agreement canceled.

According to Bloomberg, the cancelation relates to a dispute over the royalties Qualcomm pays Arm in return for licensing its architecture, and a Qualcomm spokesperson has reportedly returned fire when asked for comment, saying that Arm’s “claim for termination is completely baseless.” The spokesperson is quoted as saying that the license cancelation represented “more unfounded threats designed to strongarm a longtime partner, interfere with our performance-leading CPUs, and increase royalty rates regardless of the broad rights under our architecture license.”

The spokesperson is also quoted as describing Arm’s behavior as “anticompetitive conduct,” describing a “desperate ploy,” while saying that the company is “confident that Qualcomm’s rights under its agreement with Arm will be affirmed.” According to the quoted Qualcomm spokesperson, the action relates to an upcoming trial in December, and Arm is making “an attempt to disrupt the legal process.”

The last few weeks have also been full of reports that Qualcomm plans to buy Intel, which have been met with both shock and skepticism. Intel is a huge company, and an outright buy-out would be a mammoth (some would say highly unrealistic) undertaking for Qualcomm, despite Intel’s recent financial troubles.

However, if there was a buyout or a merger, it would put Qualcomm/Intel in the envious position of having both Arm and x86 licenses, as well as huge experience in making both types of chip. Such a setup, with access to the best of both worlds, would have huge implications for the chip business.

Without an Arm license, though, Qualcomm’s current chip business would be stalled, and such a situation would also have dramatic implications for the companies that make devices based on Qualcomm chips, which include Microsoft Surface and Asus Vivobook laptops, as well as Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets.

We’ll have to wait and see how this pans out, but in the meantime, you can see what’s coming soon in the world of PC desktop CPUs by checking out our Intel Arrow Lake guide, where we take you through Intel’s new gaming CPU range. You can also read our Intel Lunar Lake guide, which runs you through Intel’s nearest equivalent of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoCs.