{"id":8094,"date":"2026-10-07T06:04:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T06:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/?p=8094"},"modified":"2026-10-07T06:04:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T06:04:48","slug":"qualcomm-vs-arm-trial-day-2-ala-commitments-and-bloomberg-leak-in-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/qualcomm-vs-arm-trial-day-2-ala-commitments-and-bloomberg-leak-in-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"Qualcomm vs. Arm Trial, Day 2 \u2013 ALA Commitments and Bloomberg leak in focus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row fullwidth=&#8221;yes&#8221;][vc_column][vc_column_text css=&#8221;{&#8220;margin-bottom&#8220;:&#8220;35px&#8220;}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-8096 \" src=\"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Qualconn_Arm_Case2_day2_TantraAnalyst.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"730\" height=\"365\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Qualconn_Arm_Case2_day2_TantraAnalyst.jpeg 1600w, https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Qualconn_Arm_Case2_day2_TantraAnalyst-300x150.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Qualconn_Arm_Case2_day2_TantraAnalyst-1024x512.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Qualconn_Arm_Case2_day2_TantraAnalyst-768x384.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Qualconn_Arm_Case2_day2_TantraAnalyst-1536x768.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 730px) 100vw, 730px\" \/><\/span><\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><strong>Check out the coverage of Day 1 here: <\/strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a style=\"color: #800000;\" href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/4zk6nSY\"><strong>Opening Statements, CEOs take the stand<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/h6>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Summary of Day 2:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Today\u2019s testimonies were mainly focused on the ALA commitments and the circumstances around the leak of Arm\u2019s notice to Bloomberg News. The day included in-person testimonies from CEOs Rene Haas and Cristiano Amon, Arm\u2019s Chief Architect Richard Grisenthwaite, then account manager Lynn Couillard, Qualcomm\u2019s Sr. Director of Verification Jignesh Trivedi, as well as video testimonies from Arm\u2019s CMO Ami Badani, product manager Martin Weidmann, PR agency FGS Global\u2019s Paul Kranhold, and Morrison &amp; Foerster LLP\u2019s Kenneth Siegel.<\/span><\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Through various testimonies, Qualcomm reiterated that Arm\u2019s commitment to ALA is faltering, and OOBs and patches were part of the contract deliverables. Arm pushed back, saying it was looking to revise ALA contracts to reflect current market realities, and OOBs and patches were not mandatory contract deliverables, and that Qualcomm didn\u2019t show any harm.<\/span><\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">The discussion around the Bloomberg leak got a lot of attention today. Qualcomm did a great job showing that the leak was planned through Arm\u2019s PR agency and timed to align with Qualcomm\u2019s Snapdragon Summit.<\/span><\/h6>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Key points from Rene Haas\u2019 Testimony (continued):<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Didn\u2019t recall anything related to leaking the letter to Bloomberg, and insisted the letter timing was to align the 60-day mandatory notice period to the last day of the trial (<a style=\"color: #808080;\" href=\"https:\/\/go.tantraanalyst.com\/blog\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">first case<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Did not tell anybody in Arm to stop the support to Qualcomm, didn\u2019t want to support anything related to Nuvia<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Talked to the media about the notice to explain Arm\u2019s position before anybody else<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Mentioned EOL (End of Life) of ALAs, and said ALA and TLA rates should be similar<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Have talked to many companies regarding providing chips, e.g., discussion with Waymo to replace x86\/Intel chips with Arm<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Clarified his comment \u201cunwinding ALA\u201d meant revising the ALA rates, not abandoning<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Said &#8211; Best Arm chips should come from Arm<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Was not happy with Qualcomm promoting RISC-V<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Agreed that compliance is critical for Arm\u2019s success<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Testimony is not yet complete. To be continued tomorrow<\/span><\/h6>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Key points from Cristiano Amon\u2019s testimony (continued)<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">44 \u2013 46% of Qualcomm\u2019s revenue comes from Chinese OEMs; Strong interest in RISC-V from China<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">RISC-V is good for microcontrollers, wearables, glasses, etc.<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Arm showed a couple of Qualcomm\u2019s RISC-V roadmaps to highlight Qualcomm\u2019s support for the technology:<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Phase-I: Wearables; Phase-II: Automotive; Phase-III: PC, Smartphone, Data Center<\/span><\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">1<sup>st<\/sup> RISC-V Data Center chip in 2029; 1<sup>st<\/sup> Value Tier Smartphone chip in 2029;<\/span><\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">1<sup>st<\/sup> Premium Tier Smartphone chip in 2031<\/span><\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">No comments were solicited by Cristiano about these projections<\/span><\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Apple pays 30cents\/chip ALA rate; Qualcomm\u2019s rate capped at $1.88 \/chip \u2013 Arm pointed out Apple is a single vendor customer<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">For v10, Qualcomm is ready to pay up to 5% above the best rate Arm offers to others, and also open to different rates for various segments (Mobile, Wearable, Compute, Auto, Data Center)<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><strong>K<span style=\"color: #000000;\">ey points from Richard Grisenthwaite and Martin Weidmann\u2019s testimonies<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Long discussions and back-and-forth on Arm releases, verification, and compliance process<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Said the documentation supplied with the compliance kit (ACK) is sufficient, and Qualcomm can generate the same reports with the tools provided; no additional support needed<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Reiterated OOBs and patches are not mandatory for compliance; Quarterly releases are sufficient<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">In one of the emails, Martin Weidmann had mentioned that OOBs have become a part of the contract<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Key points from <\/strong><strong>Jignesh Trivedi\u2019s testimony<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Another long back-and-forth on the verification and compliance process<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">~65k tests for compliance; OOBs are specific to a CPU design, quarterly releases can\u2019t cover them<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Insisted that without OOBs and patches, Qualcomm might be shooting in the dark, not knowing whether the design is fully compliant or not; Also might over- or under-test<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Claimed lack of OOBs and patches increased the workload of Qualcomm engineers and potential risks &#8211; compliance problems can\u2019t be fixed in the field<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">No documentation from Qualcomm to quantify the additional effort because of the absence of OOBs and patches<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">No visible harm to Qualcomm \u2013 chips were not delayed, no compliance issues after designs were commercialized<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Key points from Ami Badani, Paul Kranhold, Paul Kranhold and Kenneth Siegel\u2019s testimonies<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">These video testimonies entirely focused on the Bloomberg leak<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Ami said that she didn\u2019t see the letter before and was not involved in showing the letter to Bloomberg; Thought it was important to inform customers and partners about the topic<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Arm\u2019s PR agency\u2019s Paul Kranhold showed the letter to Ian King of Bloomberg<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">It was not made clear that the letter was an intent to cancel the license (later withdrawn), and there was a 60-day cure period<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Arm claimed that the timing of the notice was to coincide with the conclusion of the upcoming trial between the companies (first case). But it was pretty apparent that it was also to coincide with Qualcomm\u2019s Snapdragon Summit<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Arm reps also actively shared the Bloomberg article with other outlets like the Financial Times<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Key points from Lynn Couillard\u2019s testimony<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Qualcomm\u2019s ALA had a provision to extend the contract for 7.5 more years to cover new Arm technologies<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Qualcomm expressed interest in extending the license to get access to v10, and separately asked for Arm\u2019s plans for v10<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Lynn, being Qualcomm account manager, pursued both of these requests from Qualcomm within Arm, but didn\u2019t get any response<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Tantra\u2019s take:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">I think Qualcomm made a strong case around the timing and leakage of the license letter. It also raised some questions about Arm\u2019s long-term views about ALA. The bigger question is how that will affect v10 licensing. That discussion started with Cristiano\u2019s testimony today and will continue with Rene\u2019s testimony tomorrow.<\/span><\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">From Arm\u2019s side, they have made a strong case in pointing out the lack of proof of harm. Whether OOBs and patches are part of the contract is still an open question; both parties have made strong arguments for their side.<\/span><\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Be sure to come back here tomorrow to read about Day-3\u2019s highlights.<\/span><\/h6>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row fullwidth=&#8221;yes&#8221;][vc_column][vc_column_text css=&#8221;{&#8220;margin-bottom&#8220;:&#8220;35px&#8220;}&#8221;] Check out the coverage of Day 1 here: Opening Statements, CEOs take the stand Summary of Day 2: Today\u2019s testimonies were mainly focused on the ALA commitments and the circumstances around the leak of Arm\u2019s notice to Bloomberg News. The day included in-person testimonies from CEOs Rene Haas and Cristiano Amon, Arm\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8094"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8097,"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8094\/revisions\/8097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tantraanalyst.com\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}