Arm Limited, a heavyweight technology partner of Qualcomm for years, has accused the San Diego company of violating chip architecture intellectual property licenses linked to a new line of high-performance processors for laptops, digital cars, smartphones and even data center servers.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in a Delaware federal court, Arm is seeking the destruction of any chip technology related to the disputed licenses, as well as injunctions and monetary damages.
The legal blowup comes as Qualcomm prepares to provide samples of these faster, energy-efficient chips to customers later this year. It's an effort to catch up with Apple's touted laptop and smartphone CPUs — or Central Processing Units. CPUs handle the hardcore computing functions on smartphones, laptops and other devices.
