Qualcomm to acquire chip company founded by Apple executives for $ 1.4 billion

Chipmaker Qualcomm today announced a major acquisition: it will buy Santa Clara-based silicon company Nuvia for $ 1.4 billion. Qualcomm intends to use Nuvia’s 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 processor core design for servers, and its company’s materials frequently refer to a mission to “reinvent” silicon design. But Qualcomm sees applications for Nuvia’s technology beyond servers.

Qualcomm’s press release says Nuvia will make “step-by-step function improvements in processor performance and power efficiency to meet the demands of next-generation 5G computing.” Qualcomm plans to use Nuvia’s technology in “flagship smartphones, next-generation laptops and digital cockpits, as well as advanced driver assistance systems, extended reality, and infrastructure network solutions.” .

Like the recently launched Apple Silicon line of chips, Nuvia’s chips are based on the ARM architecture but are not fully licensed by ARM. This will allow Qualcomm to achieve better margins while developing chips that could help it compete more directly with Apple’s chips. Qualcomm already supplies ARM-based chips for machines designed by Samsung and Microsoft.

According to Crunchbase, the smaller company has fewer than 100 employees, so the acquisition may be mostly intellectual property related. However, the press release notes that the founders of Nuvia “and their employees” will join Qualcomm.

The announcement included statements in favor of the acquisition and its direction by 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 growing perceptions that Apple’s chips are faster and more efficient.

In 2019, Apple sued one of Nuvia’s founders, Gerard Williams III, claiming he attempted to poach Apple employees for the new company before leaving his job at Apple. However, the lawsuit did not allege theft of intellectual property.