The dispute between Qualcomm and Arm has escalated with the latter canceling Qualcomm’s ability to use the instruction set for designing chips.
Sounds like things are getting tense. I feel like this is just a negotiating tactic by Arm, but man it would sure be wild if they follow through beyond the 60 day notice period.
Ah, time to switch to RISC-V, then? Long term it’s the best choice. Wouldn’t be surprised if they started working on it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they started working on it, but even if they had a design ready, it wouldn’t happen overnight. Apps, and Android itself, don’t yet have support for RISC-V (though I believe Android 15 has preliminary support).
At the moment, Qualcomm likely has to bend over and take it
I mean, sure, but this could be the push to open architecture. Half the apps wouldn’t need recompiling anyway, only those containing native code.
Realistically it could take 2-3 years for Qualcomm to switch to RISC-V (so 5 years because we all know how smooth such huge transitions are). That’s enough time for Google to fully support Android on RISC-V.
IMO it’s now in Google’s hands, once they add support, interesting things are gonna happen. I could even see Arm going out of business, I’m sure Qualcomm would happily help others transition for a very fair fee to help get them out of business.
I think with RISC-V being as supported as it is (meaning it’s nothing obscure, but has strong open source toolchain support), this might potentially be a very bad move for Arm.
Anyway, I love it when corporate greed destroys corporations instead of humans for a change. And if open architecture gains traction thanks to that, well, all the better.
What does this mean for average consumers, or prosumers?
Qualcomm will need a place to stay, maybe set up the bed in the basement for them.
Qualcomm settles and continues to pay ARM a bigger shitload of money, Qualcomm SoC prices increase to make up for that, phone prices increase further.
It will impact the elite CPUs
