Is it reasonable for Loongson to pay 24.13 million for MIPS authorization fee for self-development?
Some time ago, the three-year legal dispute between Loongson and SMIC finally came to an end.
KTC lost the case and had to pay 4141 to LoongsonHK$47.66 million in arbitration costs (4034.).The amount of HK$2.88 million has not yet been determined). However, since April 2020, Loongson has stopped paying license fees to MIPS, and the total license fees to date have reached 2412$920,000.
Based on this calculation, SMIC still has to pay SMIC HK$17,347,400 (about 16,213,600 yuan).
Everyone thinks that there is no problem for Loongson to win the lawsuit, because Loongson is completely self-developed LoongArch instruction system and has nothing to do with MIPS, so it is not afraid of Intel's lawsuit at all.
However, there are some doubts about the payment issue, because Loongarch is completely self-developed and no longer uses MIPS, so why should we pay the license fee? Or is this LoongArch control system a copycat and has nothing to do with MIPS?
As we all know, Loongson has been using MIPS control systems in the early days, and even if it later expanded to its own Loongisa, it is inseparable from MIPS control systems.
As a result, all chips launched by Longchip used MIPS' directives from the outset, and when selling these chips, Longchip had to pay a license fee to MIPS as set out in the original agreement.
When LoongArch 3A5000 is launched in July 2021, LoongArch will adopt a LoongArch command system developed entirely in-house and will no longer have any relationship with MIPS and will not have to pay a license fee to MIPS.
That's exactly why CoreLink Core is suing Loongarch, saying that its company, Loongarch, infringes on the MIPS instruction set and will no longer pay MIPS.
However, Loongson released many of the Loongson 3A5000 pre-Loongson chips, which inevitably required a license fee due to their use of MIPS instructions. 3a5000 and above are free.
For this reason, it owes $24 million in license fees, which must be repaid.
Even Loongson will continue to pay the costs of the core because some of the old wafers are still in production, and there is no reason to pay these fees, because the old wafers are no longer ** after they are sold out.