Qualcomm chipmaker announced a major acquisition today: it will buy the Santa Clara Nuvia silicon company for $ 1.4 billion. Qualcomm plans to use Nuvia technology in future chip designs for a wide range of devices, from phones to cars.
Nuvia was founded in 2019 by three former Apple semiconductor executives. The startup has developed a custom CPU core design for servers, and its company’s materials often reference the mission of “reimagining” silicon design. But Qualcomm sees applications for Nuvia’s technology in addition to servers.
The Qualcomm press release says that Nuvia will offer “gradual improvements in CPU performance and energy efficiency to meet the demands of next generation 5G computing” Qualcomm plans to use Nuvia technology in “flagship smartphones, laptops from latest generation and digital cockpits, as well as advanced driver assistance systems, extended reality and infrastructure network solutions “.
Like the recently launched line of Apple Silicon chips, Nuvia chips are based on the ARM architecture, but not fully licensed by ARM. This will allow Qualcomm to get better margins by developing chips that can help it compete with Apple chips more directly. Qualcomm already supplies ARM-based chips for machines designed by Samsung and Microsoft.
The smaller company has fewer than 100 employees, according to Crunchbase, so the acquisition may be mostly about intellectual property. However, the press release states that Nuvia’s founders “and their employees” will join Qualcomm.
The announcement included statements in support of the acquisition and where it can go from a wide range of technology companies, including Microsoft, Asus, Google, General Motors and LG, among others. In other words, this acquisition is part of a strategy shared by Qualcomm and its customers and partners to combat the growing perception that Apple’s chips are faster and more efficient.
In 2019, Apple sued one of Nuvia’s founders, Gerard Williams III, alleging that he tried to rob Apple employees for the new venture before leaving his position at Apple. However, the lawsuit did not claim theft of intellectual property.