Tantra Analyst

Coverage of previous days:

Day 1: Opening Statements, CEOs take the stand

Day 2: ALA Commitments and Bloomberg leak in focus

Day 3: Focus on License Rates, Judge’s Questions on Remedy, and XXXXXX

Summary of Day 4:

Most of the day was spent in a sealed courtroom, where the court likely discussed the harm Qualcomm claimed from an alleged ALA & TLA breach and tortious interference (Arm publicizing the license notice). The other topics discussed were Arm trying to prove that Qualcomm’s request for a TLA license extension was a ploy to get peripheral IP, and Qualcomm rebutting it, as well as Arm showing that it didn’t compete with Qualcomm for Meta data center business, as the former didn’t know Qualcomm’s data center chip plans.

Both parties rested their case, and Arm moved a motion for judgment in its favor, claiming Qualcomm did not meet its burden of proof. Qualcomm obviously opposed it, claiming there was enough evidence of harm. Finally, the day ended with Judge Noreika hashing out the jury instructions and verdict form.

Today’s testimony included Qualcomm’s damage expert Patrick Kennedy, chip roadmap lead Manju Varma, and Arm’s EVP Mohamed Awad, all in person, and Qualcomm General Counsel Ann Chaplin, SVP Ziad Asghar, IP sourcing lead Kurt Wolf, CPU lead Gerard Williams, and CPU tester Jeff Golden, all on video.

Both parties will present their closing statements tomorrow, and the jury will begin deliberations and, hopefully, reach a verdict.

Key points from Manju Varma’s testimony:

• Qualcomm was planning chipsets based on Arm TLA cores (Hunter, Hayes) in 2024, and needed TLA license going beyond the current validity of 2026

• These cores were used for mid- and value tier smartphone chips

• Arm microcontrollers (Yamin) and Peripheral IP (GIC-700 and SMMU-700) were extensively used across Qualcomm chips

• Even after repeated requests for TLA extensions, Arm didn’t respond

• No resources to develop ALA cores for these chips

• Timeline for three chipsets (Ketron, Skyros and Clarence 27) had to be moved out and eventually canceled; RISC-V was considered as one of the options but didn’t work out because of its immaturity; resulted in not having the right chips in those tiers

• Did finally get a license extension offer from Arm, but it was too expensive. Qualcomm paid the same 2013 rates till now

• Arm’s 2024 proposal:

A720 5.75% 1-4 cores; A720 7% 5-8 cores; A520 4.75% 1-4 cores; A520 6% 5-8 cores

Cortex M55 per core 2.2%; Config1 Gold 8×8 7% floor $1.20; Config2 Silver+ 2×8 6.5%

• Arm claimed that Qualcomm used the request for TLA core license to sweeten the deal for actually getting microcontroller and peripheral IP license

• Arm also claimed there was no proof of harm- the roadmap continuously changes anyway, and cancellation was merely a change in a PowerPoint slide

Key points from Mohamed Awad’s testimony:

• Arm had 0% data center CPU market share in 2018, and 25-30% now; Intel and AMD have the remaining share; RISC-V share is negligible; the majority of Arm’s share comes from AWS

• There was a huge barrier to entering the data center market with Arm ISA/Cores. A handful of companies had tried and failed, including Qualcomm

• Arm tried to lower the entry barrier. AWS was the first and started with Arm’s standard cores

• Next, Google designed its own silicon with Arm IP. Microsoft used Arm’s compute subsystem; all of these players were working with ASIC players like Broadcom for their chips

• Arm approached Meta in 2018, but Meta was not interested as it believed the Arm ecosystem was not stable

• In 2023, Meta approached Arm for its data center solutions and signed an MoU in 2024

• At that point, Arm didn’t know Qualcomm was building its data center chip and was working with Meta, as it had earlier exited the market

• Arm didn’t want to keep Qualcomm out of the data center market, as the opportunity is huge ($ 1 trillion), and no major data center player wants to give more than 50% share to a single vendor

• Arm highlighted Qualcomm entering the data center market as a positive development in its investor communication

Key points from Ann Chaplin’s testimony:

• If Arm had not publicized the license notice, Qualcomm would probably have had to disclose it in its SEC filings anyway

• Might have talked to media on background regarding the license notice

Key points from Ziad Asghar’s testimony:

• In a chat, John Bruno (of Qualcomm) mentions to Ziad, “Arm will fuck us any chance they get”

• Talked about the relationship with Arm not being great at the time

• In another interaction, Ziad says “…we want to keep them on the heck but then dump them at the altar.” Arm claimed “them” here was Arm. Ziad was not sure/didn’t remember who that was

Key points from Kurt Wolf’s testimony:

• Was not aware of any Qualcomm chips using TLA cores (Hunter and Hayes)

• “Scratching his head” on why Arm was not responding to license extension requests for Peripheral IP

• Came up with the idea (without relying on legal counsel) to sweeten the request by adding Hunter and Hayes

Key points from Gerard Williams’ testimony:

• Was not aware of any programs using TLA cores beyond 2026

• Qualcomm didn’t fail to put out any core because of the inability to validate; Qualcomm engineers ran the compliance tests

Key points from Jeff Golden’s testimony:

• Did verification tests for many ALA cores

• Knew about periodic ACK updates but didn’t know what all fixes they contain

• Didn’t spend any extra time verifying the ALA cores without the OOBs and patches

Tantra’s take:

The case is at a critical juncture. Several decisions are still pending, as well as the appeals from the first case. Here is a quick list:

• Obviously, the jury verdict. Deliberations start after the closing statements tomorrow. We don’t yet know how long the verdict form is. That will give some idea of the complexity of the questions the jury has to answer. Based on the contentious debate between the parties, it appears that both jury instructions and verdict forms are long and complex

• No clarity on when and how the motion for judgment was moved by Arm will be decided. It seems the jury verdict might nullify that

• Both parties will also present closing arguments in the bench trial tomorrow, which the judge will decide. The biggest issue here is judgment on the v10 license and the rates. This decision will most likely take several months

• If, in this bench case, Qualcomm prevails, then there is an even bigger question about the remedy. The judge is unwilling to arbitrate the license rates. So, there is a lot of uncertainty

• There was a bench trial for this case earlier in the month, where the validity of the remedy mentioned in the contract vis-à-vis California law was debated. The judge has indicated that she will most likely rule in favor of Arm. But she is yet to give an official ruling

• Of course, there is a strong possibility that, no matter which party wins, the losing party will appeal. And that applies to all the cases mentioned above

• Added to that, the appeal for the first case is coming up in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit later this month.

 Be sure to come back here tomorrow to read about Day-5’s highlights.