ARM gives up on trying to withdraw Qualcomm's chip design license
- Kangal
- HX6
- 07 Feb 2025
Anonymous, 07 Feb 2025Oryon cores have turned out to be not much better than gene... moreTrue.
However, remember that the Nuvia was developed back in 2019. They called it the Phoenix. It was designed to scale from Apple A13 levels to M1/Pro/Max/Ultra levels. So on-par to AMD's Zen3+ but half the power. Or close to the levels of the Cortex-X3 found in the QC 8g2 from 2023. Only theoretical of course.
That was impressive back then, on an 8nm-TSMC node in 2019. But it was only in-works, until the second generation Orion cores built upon 5nm-TSMC in 2021 but we never got a release. Just as it was acquired by Qualcomm.
These core technologies kind of got updated by Qualcomm. A major rewrite to ARMv9 architecture, while keeping the core principles of bandwidth, cache, and single-core performance. This was rolled out as the "Oryon" core in the Laptop focused Snapdragon X Elite chipset(s). In comparisons, it was slightly behind the 4nm-TSMC chipsets of Apple A17 and M3 architecture families. That's pretty good, and above the Cortex-X4 levels technologically.
A minor upgrade was made to Oryon, making it the 4th generation Nuvia. It was upgraded to the true and proper-3nm node from TSMC and released in 2025 with the Snapdragon 8 Elite. This boost has allowed it to match (slightly below/above) the architecture of the Apple A18/M4. On top of this, we had a major overhaul at ARM with their proper next-gen architecture on ARMv9 with the Cortex-X5 aka Cortex-X925. And unfortunate for Qualcomm, it is roughly on-par with their proprietary architecture.
For now, only small chips have been released. And a bigger competitor in the Apple M5 is imminent. So a big chipset by MediaTek will likely also pose strong competition, and also by Samsung, possibly by Nvidia too.
So that is basically the background. I think Nuvia was around 3+ years ahead of the market. But the delays in the acquisition, and the rewrite, and from concept to product, have eroded it. It went from a revolutionary technology to a merely evolutionary one. Perhaps we may have been served better if Nuvia was able to release some hardware first, and during their acquisition phase. Getting it out, and in the hands of consumers and developers (even if just in Tablets, Laptops, Desktops, or SBC) could mean having a stable base for drivers, kernel, and Linux support. It could shave months/years off the other projects.
- C
- Cpt.Power
- SH3
- 07 Feb 2025
guys mmissing good old times with Vega, ZX Sinclair, Amiga, Commodore 64, IBM PC Model 5150, Compaq Portable PC, IBM PC/XT, Apple Macintosh, Compaq Deskpro 386, NEC UltraLite, NeXT Computer Etc.
- H
- Hemedans
- XKx
- 07 Feb 2025
Anonymous, 07 Feb 2025"Oryon cores have turned out to be not much better tha... moreThey are using Arm isa not Arm design/Core, from scratch it's different to Arm cores not just cache.
- D
- Darth Caesium
- dUQ
- 07 Feb 2025
Anonymous, 07 Feb 2025arm sucks. riscv is for futureRISC-V barely has a shared set of common protocols and instruction sets. By its very nature, RISC-V will never take off outside of simple microcontrollers (and smartwatches in the best case scenario) unless they change their approach. If they do that though, they will have also gotten rid of most of the incentives of using RISC-V.
Besides, as the legendary chip designer Jim Keller has said, microarchitectures barely matter anymore. ARM is at best 6% more efficient than x86 (generally not even that), there isn't an actual performance difference microarchitecturally, etc. The problem you bring by switching is software compatibility, while the advantage of using it is at best cost-related, and that's to do with people like ARM being greedy rather than microarchitecture-related. RISC-V may be essentially free, but there will be headaches from switching microarchitectures, worsened by the fact that there's a real lack of commonly accepted instruction sets, so app development on RISC-V won't happen outside of for specific server hardware unless they change their approach.
- D
- Darth Caesium
- dUQ
- 07 Feb 2025
Anonymous, 07 Feb 2025ARM 2025 Arm must not be taken advantage of by Qualcomm, b... moreWho are you? The incompetent CEO of SoftBank? Do you regret making your company buy ARM when you clearly have no understanding of how ARM's business model works and have made the long-term fate of the company uncertain by worsening your relationship with your partners for no gain?
- ?
- Anonymous
- XVE
- 07 Feb 2025
Anonymous, 07 Feb 2025Oryon cores have turned out to be not much better than gene... more"Oryon cores have turned out to be not much better than generic ARM cores. I guess ARM isn't that worried now."
Oryon is basically using ARM.
The different is mostly in L1-L2-L3 cache bus.
- ?
- Anonymous
- XVE
- 07 Feb 2025
Anonymous, 07 Feb 2025arm sucks. riscv is for futureARM = Accorn RISC Machine
RISC-V = RISC -V
Same instruction set.
Different implementation / way
Kind of x86-64 from intel vs AMD
Both x86, but different way in doing the architechture.
- Z
- Zero
- L8G
- 07 Feb 2025
Hemedans, 07 Feb 2025Apple Big core size - 3.1 mm2 Phoenix L core size - 2.1 m... moreUntil you see who is the boss in the laptop departmemt and is Apple the winner.
- ?
- Anonymous
- nZ2
- 07 Feb 2025
ARM is right in this case. Qualcomm developed Oryon under the wrong license (Nuvia's server chip license) that saved them a lot of money and a jury that doesn't understand such technicalities couldn't come to a conclusion. I think they made a deal behind closed doors otherwise Qualcomm ripped ARM off big time.
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- Hemedans
- XKx
- 07 Feb 2025
Anonymous, 07 Feb 2025Oryon cores have turned out to be not much better than gene... moreApple Big core size - 3.1 mm2
Phoenix L core size - 2.1 mm2
Cortex A925 core size 2.8 mm2
By far Qualcomm custom cores are smaller, they clock higher, give more perfomance and power consumption is same.
Thats why Qualcomm is printing money in this generation.
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- Anonymous
- CbB
- 07 Feb 2025
Qualcomm is a big customer for ARM. They can't mess with each other.
- ?
- Anonymous
- YT8
- 07 Feb 2025
Q got what need to make soc from various path by working with
arm design, hiring apple chip engineers, samsung and microsoft.
now they think they're good to go with own design and soon manufacturing.
they still have partners from above names.
- W
- Waraduk
- xhm
- 07 Feb 2025
Holy moly another based long-term battle
UK (ARM) against USA (Qualcomm) such a classic winner 🏆😏
- H
- Hi
- 39x
- 07 Feb 2025
Qualcom threaten arm with war from usa
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- Anonymous
- txG
- 07 Feb 2025
They need each other
- ?
- Anonymous
- raQ
- 07 Feb 2025
ARM 2025
Arm must not be taken advantage of by Qualcomm, breaking the agreement, and the American judge sided with Qualcomm to steal Arm's patent rights and develop them themselves through Nuvia Company. Hopefully, ARM really doesn't experience a technological lag and cuts ties with Qualcomm this year, so that it only prioritizes Dimensity, Exynos and Apple Bionic, Don't let yourself be exploited and secretly betrayed by Qualcomm America.
- ?
- Anonymous
- 0p}
- 07 Feb 2025
Oryon cores have turned out to be not much better than generic ARM cores. I guess ARM isn't that worried now.
- ?
- Anonymous
- Fvc
- 07 Feb 2025
arm sucks. riscv is for future