Qualcomm announced a legal victory this week in its patent dispute with Arm. The US District Court for Delaware dismissed Arm's claims against Qualcomm and Nuvia regarding licensing agreements and barred Arm from appealing.
This ruling confirms Qualcomm's rights to continue developing the Nuvia team's Oryon CPU and to use Arm's instruction set under existing licenses.
Qualcomm's counterclaims against Arm remain active, with a verdict expected by March 2026. Industry watchers are closely monitoring how the companies' relationship might evolve or mend going forward.
Notably, at Qualcomm's 2025 Snapdragon Summit, the company revealed that this year's Oryon CPU has upgraded to the Arm v9 instruction set, despite no explicit mention during the event.
This marks a significant shift from previous years when ongoing litigation froze Qualcomm's instruction set usage at an earlier generation, suggesting reduced tension between the two firms.
Insiders familiar with the mobile SoC industry note that in 2024, Qualcomm lagged one generation behind MediaTek in instruction set adoption, narrowing performance and power efficiency gaps. This indicates that without repairing relations with Arm, Qualcomm's product capabilities could be adversely affected even if it does not adopt Arm's reference designs.
According to internal sources, at the peak of their conflict, Qualcomm had the technical capacity to abandon Arm's instruction set entirely and switch to RISC-V architecture CPUs while maintaining comparable performance and power metrics.
However, considering ecosystem scale differences, Qualcomm chose to stay within Arm's framework to avoid disrupting customers. The PC market presents similar dynamics, as Microsoft and many partner brands actively promote Windows on Arm (WoA). Qualcomm must factor these collaborations into its strategy, continuing cooperation with Arm.
Industry experts state that although Qualcomm is among the major players advancing RISC-V's market influence, consumer products still largely require Arm's instruction sets. Early RISC-V adoption is expected first in Qualcomm's IoT and automotive lines, while other applications will predominantly rely on Arm architectures.
At this year's Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm reiterated WoA's vast growth potential. With competitors like Nvidia preparing to enter the space, WoA's market outlook remains highly promising. Microsoft continues improving the WoA ecosystem, making it unlikely Qualcomm will quickly exit the Arm architecture market.
To further repair relations, Qualcomm may need to adjust its approach before the March 2026 ruling on Arm's counterclaims. Whether through negotiating new licensing deals or deepening technical and business collaboration, such moves would help ease tensions.
IC design insiders believe both Qualcomm and Arm depend more on each other than they admit, and neither can afford the commercial fallout of a broken partnership. As a result, the industry expects a gradual reconciliation between the two companies.
Article edited by Jack Wu
