Qualcomm apparently accuses ARM to antitrust authorities
Qualcomm is said to have filed antitrust complaints against ARM in Europe, South Korea and the USA. ARM is withholding technology.
(Image: raigvi / Shutterstock)
The mud-slinging between ARM and Qualcomm is taking a new turn: Qualcomm is said to have filed antitrust-related complaints with the European Commission, the US Federal Trade Commission and the Korea Fair Trade Commission.
This was reported by the US news service Bloomberg. According to its sources, a central accusation is that ARM is withholding "critical technologies" that it is obliged to provide as part of its license agreement. ARM develops the CPU instruction set of the same name that Qualcomm uses for its own mobile processors.
Qualcomm allegedly claims that ARM has driven dependence on its technology with a decades-long open licensing model. ARM's focus on higher profits is now threatening market dynamics.
A key issue could be ARM's manufacturing ambitions: ARM CEO Rene Haas admitted in court that the company already had plans for its own processors and had not scrapped them. ARM would then not only sell designs to third-party companies, but also have its own CPUs manufactured by chip contract manufacturers such as TSMC. This would put ARM in direct competition with Qualcomm & Co.
There is already a potential conflict of interest due to the Japanese owner Softbank: after the chip designer Graphcore, the investor recently also swallowed up the server CPU specialist Ampere Computing.
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Years of dispute
ARM and Qualcomm have been at loggerheads since Qualcomm's takeover of the start-up Nuvia. ARM disapproves of the purchase because it deprives the company of license income and argues that Qualcomm should not integrate Nuvia's custom ARM cores into its Snapdragon X processors.
At the end of 2024, ARM lost a court case in the USA. The jury ruled that Qualcomm's use of the Nuvia cores was legitimate. However, the jury could not agree on one question: Was Nuvia allowed to sell its technology to Qualcomm without ARM's consent?
This question is to be clarified in further court proceedings in the future. At the same time, ARM and Qualcomm are required to mediate out of court and work towards an agreement. According to court documents, talks have been ongoing since the end of January 2025.
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