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Qualcomm’s 2013 Arm Architecture License Agreement (ALA) gives it a non-exclusive, worldwide right to use applicable Arm technology to design and have designed CPU cores that comply with the Arm instruction set architecture (ISA). That is fundamentally different from a Technology License Agreement (TLA), which licenses a specific Arm CPU or other design. In the Qualcomm–Nuvia dispute, a jury found that Qualcomm’s use of technology associated with Nuvia was covered by Qualcomm’s own ALA, and the court entered final judgment for Qualcomm and Nuvia on September 30, 2025. Arm’s appeal was still pending in its June 2026 filing.
The short answer: an ALA lets a company create its own Arm-compatible core
An Arm ISA is the rulebook software uses to communicate with a processor. A chip company with an Architecture License Agreement can use that rulebook to develop a substantially customized CPU core rather than simply installing a processor design supplied by Arm. The company can then integrate its core into system-on-chip products, subject to the specific contract’s technical, commercial and compliance terms.
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Arm’s public filings describe an ALA as allowing a licensee to develop its own customized CPU design that follows the Arm ISA. The agreement does not mean the licensee owns the Arm ISA or receives unlimited rights to every Arm technology. It grants the contractual rights stated in that particular ALA.
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Arm’s description of a Technology License Agreement is narrower: a TLA licenses a particular CPU or another technology design. A customer using a TLA generally receives a defined design to incorporate, while an ALA customer develops its own implementation of the architecture. The exact boundaries, fees, product categories, territories and compliance requirements depend on the contract; Arm’s public descriptions are categories, not the complete terms of Qualcomm’s confidential agreement.
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ALA and TLA compared
| Question | Architecture License Agreement (ALA) | Technology License Agreement (TLA) |
|---|---|---|
| Who creates the CPU design? | The licensee develops a customized core, itself or through a design partner. | Arm licenses a particular CPU or other technology design. |
| What must the result follow? | The licensee’s core must comply with the Arm ISA and the agreement’s requirements. | The supplied design is the licensed technology; implementation remains subject to the contract. |
| How much design freedom is involved? | Broad architectural and microarchitectural customization, within the ALA’s limits. | Less freedom to alter the licensed design than under an ALA. |
| Incorporating designs into new chips | Governed by the individual ALA. | Arm says the TLA may limit the period in which a design can be incorporated into new chips. |
| Concurrent designs | Any limit is contract-specific. | Arm says a TLA may limit the number of concurrent designs. |
| Manufacturing after design work | Not established by the public summaries for Qualcomm’s ALA. | Arm says licensees typically may manufacture licensed designs perpetually, subject to the agreement. |
The table describes Arm’s public categories. It should not be read as a disclosure of every term in Qualcomm’s ALA or any other customer’s contract.
What Qualcomm’s 2013 ALA says it could do
The Delaware district court described Qualcomm’s 2013 ALA as granting a “non-exclusive, world-wide right and licence” to “use the applicable ARM Technology to design and have designed . . . Architecture Compliant Cores.” The court further described an Architecture Compliant Core as a “microprocessor core developed by or for [Qualcomm] under the [ALA].”
In practical terms, that wording covers several activities:
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- Developing a core: Qualcomm can create its own processor implementation that follows the Arm ISA, rather than selecting only an off-the-shelf Arm core.
- Commissioning design work: “Design and have designed” allows Qualcomm to perform the work internally or engage another party to develop the core for Qualcomm, within the agreement.
- Using applicable Arm technology: Qualcomm can use the Arm technology covered by its ALA as the foundation for that compliant core. “Applicable” matters: the contract does not automatically cover every Arm technology ever released.
- Building products around the core: The core can be incorporated into Qualcomm chips, provided the resulting use complies with the ALA and other applicable obligations.
“Non-exclusive” means Arm can license the same underlying architecture or technology to other customers. “Worldwide” describes the geographic scope stated by the court for Qualcomm’s agreement; it does not erase other contractual restrictions, export controls or product-specific conditions.
Why an ALA is valuable to a chipmaker
Custom performance and power targets
A company designing its own core can choose pipeline depth, execution resources, cache structure, branch prediction and other implementation details to target particular performance, power and die-area goals. Those engineering choices are what distinguish a custom core from simply integrating a standard licensed design. The public court record does not disclose Qualcomm’s design methods, fees or product limits, so no specific performance advantage can be inferred from the license alone.
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Control of the product roadmap
An ALA can let a chipmaker align the CPU with its own release schedule and system architecture. The company is not limited to the update timetable of a supplied core, although it remains responsible for making the implementation ISA-compliant and meeting the ALA’s contractual requirements.
Use of outside design teams
The court’s wording expressly includes the right to “have designed” Architecture Compliant Cores. That is important for companies that use subsidiaries, contractors or acquired engineering teams. The contract still determines who may perform the work and how confidential Arm technology must be handled.
What an ALA does not automatically allow
- It does not transfer ownership of the Arm ISA or all Arm intellectual property.
- It does not make every CPU or accelerator design from Arm available to the licensee.
- It does not guarantee that an acquired company’s separate Arm license can be assigned or combined with the buyer’s license.
- It does not reveal a universal royalty rate, one-time fee, minimum-volume commitment or product limit.
- It does not remove the need to comply with technical specifications, support obligations, confidentiality provisions or applicable law.
Those limits are why the wording of each agreement matters. A general description of an ALA cannot answer whether a particular acquired design, derivative, software tool or manufacturing arrangement is covered.
How Nuvia made the licensing question contentious
Nuvia held its own Arm ALA for CPU development. That agreement contained an assignment provision requiring Arm’s consent for an assignment in an acquisition. Qualcomm acquired Nuvia in March 2021. In February 2022, Arm notified Nuvia that it would terminate the Nuvia agreement effective March 1, 2022. Arm later sued, seeking remedies that included stopping use of relevant technology and requiring destruction of it.
The central question was not simply whether Nuvia had once held an Arm license. It was whether Qualcomm could use technology associated with Nuvia under Qualcomm’s separate 2013 ALA, and what obligations remained under Nuvia’s agreement after the acquisition and attempted termination.
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Arm argued that the assignment-consent language mattered and that certain technology had to be returned or destroyed after termination. Qualcomm argued that its own ALA independently covered the challenged use. The two agreements therefore raised different issues:
| Issue | Agreement or conduct involved | Why it mattered |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment in an acquisition | Nuvia’s separate ALA | The agreement required Arm’s consent for an assignment, creating a question about the effect of Qualcomm’s acquisition. |
| Use of the technology by Qualcomm | Qualcomm’s 2013 ALA | Qualcomm claimed its own non-exclusive right to design and have designed compliant cores covered the use. |
| Post-termination obligations | Nuvia’s ALA and Arm’s termination notice | Arm sought restrictions on use and destruction or return of relevant technology. |
| Whether Nuvia breached | Nuvia’s ALA | The jury did not reach a verdict; the court later resolved the issue in Qualcomm and Nuvia’s favor. |
An acquisition does not automatically transfer every license right. The Nuvia agreement’s express consent condition made that a contract-specific question. The court and jury instead had to examine the language and evidence for these particular agreements.
What the jury and court decided
December 2024 trial
At trial in December 2024, the jury found that Arm had not proved Qualcomm breached the relevant Nuvia ALA provision. It also found that Qualcomm had proved its challenged use of Arm technology was licensed under Qualcomm’s own ALA.
The jury deadlocked on whether Nuvia itself had breached its agreement. A deadlock is not a finding that Nuvia breached or did not breach; it means the jury did not reach a unanimous verdict on that question.
September 30, 2025 judgment
On September 30, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware upheld the findings the jury had reached, denied Arm’s request for a new trial and granted Qualcomm judgment as a matter of law on the unresolved Nuvia-breach question. The court entered final judgment for Qualcomm and Nuvia.
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The court’s description of Qualcomm’s ALA is the key passage for understanding the licensing issue: it granted Qualcomm a “non-exclusive, world-wide right and licence” to use applicable Arm technology to design and have designed Architecture Compliant Cores developed by or for Qualcomm under the ALA.
Appeal status reported in 2026
Arm’s filing dated June 2026 said its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit was pending. A pending appeal means the district court judgment was the operative trial-court result described by the available filings; it does not establish what the appellate court will decide.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A separate Qualcomm–Arm case remained active
The litigation over Nuvia’s agreement was not the only dispute between the companies. Arm’s June 2026 filing said Qualcomm’s separate lawsuit against Arm Holdings and Arm Limited had been consolidated in March 2026. Qualcomm filed an amended complaint against Arm Limited on March 30, 2026, adding a contract claim.
Arm disputed Qualcomm’s assertions and said the case was expected to go to trial in the fourth quarter of 2026. Qualcomm’s quarterly filing for the period ended December 28, 2025, listed October 5, 2026, as the scheduled trial start. Those filings provide a timetable, not an outcome. The available information does not establish what happened at or after that scheduled date.
What chip companies should check before relying on an Arm license
A chipmaker evaluating an ALA, a TLA or an acquisition should separate the architectural right from the surrounding contractual conditions. The following checklist identifies the questions that determine whether a planned product is actually covered:
- Identify the license type. Confirm whether the agreement is an ALA for custom ISA-compliant cores, a TLA for a supplied design, or a combination of licenses.
- Map the licensed technology. List the Arm technology expressly covered and distinguish it from tools, reference designs, physical IP, graphics technology or later Arm releases.
- Define the permitted users. Check whether subsidiaries, contractors, foundries, joint ventures and acquired engineering teams may design, modify or manufacture the technology.
- Review assignment and change-of-control language. Determine whether an acquisition requires Arm’s prior consent, notice or a new agreement.
- Check design and incorporation windows. For a TLA especially, look for deadlines governing when a licensed design may be incorporated into new chips and limits on concurrent designs.
- Separate design rights from manufacturing rights. Confirm whether manufacturing is perpetual, tied to a product or limited by another term. Arm’s public filing says licensees typically may manufacture TLA designs perpetually, but a customer must read its own contract.
- Plan termination procedures. Identify what happens to work in progress, shipped products, source code, masks, documentation and confidential information if the license ends.
- Document compliance. Keep records showing how each core was developed, which agreement covers it and which entities performed the work.
What is established—and what is not—about Qualcomm’s commercial terms
The public court opinion establishes the broad scope quoted above and the litigation outcome. The reviewed public filings do not disclose Qualcomm’s full current ALA, fee schedule, royalty rates, minimum commitments, product-by-product restrictions or complete technical schedules. They also do not establish a consumer purchase or a particular retail product that can be traced to one clause of the agreement.
Accordingly, it is accurate to say that Qualcomm had a broad, non-exclusive, worldwide contractual right to design and have designed Arm ISA-compliant cores under its own ALA, and that the jury found the challenged Nuvia-associated use covered by that right. It is not accurate to assume that every Qualcomm product, every Nuvia asset or every acquired Arm license is covered in the same way.
Why the ruling matters to the chip industry
The decision illustrates how two licenses covering the same architecture can produce different legal results. Nuvia’s agreement contained an acquisition-consent condition, while Qualcomm’s agreement independently described rights to use applicable Arm technology to create compliant cores. The court accepted the distinction for the conduct and agreements before it.
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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →For chipmakers, the practical lesson is to analyze the license chain, not just the processor architecture. A company may have a valid ALA and still face disputes about an acquired subsidiary’s agreement, assignment consent, termination duties or the identity of the entity that performed the design work. Conversely, an acquisition-related challenge does not by itself establish that the buyer’s separate ALA fails to cover a particular use.
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