Qualcomm’s PC chips are safe from ARM litigation (for now) following court ruling

Last month Qualcomm introduced its 2nd-gen chips for Windows laptops and other PCs, promising big gains in CPU, graphics, and AI performance. But for the past few years there's been a bit of uncertainty over whether the company would be able to continue making these chips.

That's because chip designer Arm had sued Qualcomm over a licensing dispute. A jury ruled in Qualcomm's favor on two out of three counts in 2024. And now a judge has dismissed the third count, prompting Qualcomm to claim "complete victory." This may not be the end of the story though: Arm says it plans to appeal.

A few years ago Qualcomm acquired a chip design startup called Nuvia in order to kickstart Qualcomm's efforts to make high-performance chips for PCs. It's Nuvia technology that's at the heart of the Oryon processor cores in Snapdragon X series processors.

But while both Qualcomm and Nuvia held licenses to make chips using Arm-based architecture, Arm claimed that when Qualcomm acquired Nuvia it did automatically get to use Nuvia's license and should have to pay more to continue using the technologies. If Arm had won in court, Qualcomm could have been blocked from producing and selling chips based on Nuvia's designs.

With this week's ruling, it looks like Qualcomm can co ntinue to produce its PC chips for now. But the two companies will likely end up back in court again… and again.

Not only is Arm expected to appeal the judge's ruling, but Qualcomm has also filed its own lawsuit against Arm for "breach of contract, improper interference with customer relationships, and for Arm's pattern of conduct seeking to hinder innovation and better position Arm's own products over its long-standing partners'." The case is expected to go to trial in March, 2026.

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