The funniest part is that he licensed the RISC-V chip from SiFive, which is now part of Intel.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-failed-to-buy-sifive
0. https://www.semianalysis.com/p/arm-changes-business-model-oe...
RISC-V and Chinese chips are coming for ARMs lunch.
Seems like Arm is trying to close licensing loopholes.
The lawsuit states
"Nuvia's licensing fees and royalty rates reflected the anticipated scope and nature of Nuvia's use of the Arm architecture. The licenses safeguarded Arm's rights and expectations by prohibiting assignment without Arm's consent, regardless of whether a contemplated assignee had its own Arm licenses."
So Arm's case seems to hinge on whether or not the license language covering the prevention of assignment will be held up in court as applicable to this situation. That's the kind of legal dispute which will be very technical and not easy to speculate about... definitions of individual words and intent and all of that.
The original article and other media keeps painting it as some sort of revenge for not allowing Nvidia buying ARM. I dont even see how the two comes together when regulations and other parties are at play as well.
The main problem with this is going to be on mobile phones, where board space is at a steep premium. Other form factors that typically have multiple processors will probably be fine, though.
I can't imagine what ARM are thinking. It's been a competitive advantage over Intel for over a decade that SoC was easy to do with ARM, while it was almost impossible with x86, because of the way IP is managed in the x86 world.
You think that "competitive advantage" helped them any? It certainly didn't. They really want the PC and datacenter space. Apple has proven that alternative architectures aren't dead there, and Arm wants it.
Me personally? I hope this works. The ARM ecosystem as it stands today is horribly broken and promotes e-waste to an extreme degree. I am also under no delusions that RISC-V would be better at this.
From https://www.semianalysis.com/p/arm-changes-business-model-oe...
The industry will simply speed up RISC-V adoption.
This is happening way later, with an industry that's already chosen to and taken steps to migrate to RISC-V, and thus is much better prepared to cope.
