Qualcomm CEO Outlines Plans to Compete With Apple Silicon, Handle Apple's Shift to In-House Modems

[Captain Trips]

OK, one more poke at Qualcomm with the help of Sinclair, since the first post is getting a good reaction.

Sinclair says:
Hey, remember that it isn't enough to have great technology. You also need top notch security to protect your intellectual property! As you can see from my picture below, I am a great sentinel for IT stuff! You need to hire me and my firm, [SoC] squared, to handle your next-gen ARM chip design and your security.

What does "[SoC] squared" stand for, you ask? Why it is "System on a Chip" _and_ "Security on Campus" - two great tastes that go great together!

I look forward to receiving your job offer.

 

[Robert.Walter]

He’s years behind the curve, going to lose more business from a major client, hopes to pickup new business.

if he weren’t selling chips he could be selling dip.

ps in all fairness, the guy can only sell what he’s got to sell plus a vision for the future.

 

[iZac]

So next year Qualcomm are aiming at competing with the SoC Apple released last year.

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

The M1 is, IMO, one of the most significant inventions to come out of Apple in a long time and really flipped the laptop game on its head. And as someone who often has to use Windows simply because the applications I run are not available on Mac, having stronger options for the non-mac portable market is huge.

Unfortunately, the kind of applications that are either outright unavailable on Mac or have less functionality on it (eg games, CAD, enterprise software) are also the least likely to be ported to Windows in Arm. And the reason that those applications have not been ported to Mac is often because they are huge apps full of Windows dependencies and/or spaghetti code going back decades, meaning that emulating these programs will either not work or have huge performance hits. I think Windows on ARM can get to the point where it is fine for most mainstream consumer software (if Microsoft and Qualcomm really are serious about it), but Macs (M1 or otherwise) are fine for that too. If you need Windows support for some niche application, Windows on ARM is probably not for you.

 

[apparatchik]

So next year Qualcomm are aiming at competing with the SoC Apple released last year.

Yes, but honestly that would be a great achievement for Qualcomm, at the end, just like with Snapdragons, they don't need to beat Apple, they just need to be the best chip outside Apple. In other words, since Apple won't offer its chips to Windows OEM's, they just need to beat Intel, regardless of how much ahead Apple will be at the time, they have smelled blood, Intel's blood.

 

[LeadingHeat]

Instead of using core designs licensed from Arm, Qualcomm is looking to use a completely custom core design for its chips, like Apple, to rival Apple silicon. Should Arm develop a better CPU than Qualcomm, Amon said that the company will seek to license the better architecture directly from Arm to ensure that its chips are industry-leading.

Huh? So they’re going to have better chips than Arm, but just in case they’re not they’ll use Arm based chips?

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

OK, one more poke at Qualcomm with the help of Sinclair, since the first post is getting a good reaction.

Sinclair says:
Hey, remember that it isn't enough to have great technology. You also need top notch security to protect your intellectual property! As you can see from my picture below, I am a great sentinel for IT stuff! You need to hire me and my firm, [SoC] squared, to handle your next-gen ARM chip design and your security.

What does "[SoC] squared" stand for, you ask? Why it is "System on a Chip" _and_ "Security on Campus" - two great tastes that go great together!

I look forward to receiving your job offer.

View attachment 1801138

I see this as 'You are trying to hard. Look at me, I'm just too cool, and I'm just sitting here. You poor human. You'll never learn. Stop competing with yourself. You burned them, and they moved on. Don't let this get pathetic...'

Am I wrong?

 

[rpmurray]

I keep thinking that everyone is tiptoeing around the dragon in the room. There is this one country that has a huge market, is not adverse to ... borrowing ... IP from elsewhere that has been acquired by ... various ... means (and also is not hampered by pesky LAWS), and is wanting to get out from under the western thumb in technology by moving everything to homegrown hardware and software. They also have VERY deep pockets to fund such a venture. We might not hear much of what's progressing behind the scenes but I'm expecting that within the coming decade they may be a very fearsome competitor considering their manufacturing base.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Good Point: "it sounds better."

Which is weird that, these days the “one to beat” isn’t Intel OR Intel’s rival

 

[Unregistered 4U]

So is it ARM architecture x86 or something else?

I believe all licenses with ARM require that they fully support ARM’s instruction set. They may be working with Microsoft on a software abstraction layer, but it will be an arm instructions set processor, not x86

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Honestly they could considering Qualcomm co-designed and manufactures the SQ series of ARM SoCs the Surface Pros currently use.

And it's a given there will be a "Snapdragon Compute Platform" for Windows 11 PCs to succeed the one for Windows 10.

Well, yeah, they could I would imagine there’s an agreement between the two that Microsoft’s able to toot their own horn first, though

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Unfortunately, the kind of applications that are either outright unavailable on Mac or have less functionality on it (eg games, CAD, enterprise software) are also the least likely to be ported to Windows in Arm.

If Microsoft wants it to happen, they’ll make it happen. Just like Apple’s dev tools make producing a pretty good first effort ARM build trivial (then, the tweaking comes after that), if Microsoft makes it easy for those using it’s dev tools to produce performant apps for both systems, the developers will do it.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I keep thinking that everyone is tiptoeing around the dragon in the room. There is this one country that has a huge market, is not adverse to ... borrowing ... IP from elsewhere that has been acquired by ... various ... means (and also is not hampered by pesky LAWS), and is wanting to get out from under the western thumb in technology by moving everything to homegrown hardware and software. They also have VERY deep pockets to fund such a venture. We might not hear much of what's progressing behind the scenes but I'm expecting that within the coming decade they may be a very fearsome competitor considering their manufacturing base.

China already has an x86 compatible solution that hasn’t taken over the world and I’d guess any ARM solution would be the same. Great to sell INSIDE the country because they can keep that tech at home and maybe even lower priced.

 

[One2Grift]

If Microsoft wants it to happen, they’ll make it happen. Just like Apple’s dev tools make producing a pretty good first effort ARM build trivial (then, the tweaking comes after that), if Microsoft makes it easy for those using it’s dev tools to produce performant apps for both systems, the developers will do it.

This is such a spot on statement.
The road to desktops still runs through Microsoft. It has for a long time and Microsoft has been gatekeeping it with the mighty boot (homage to Duke Nukem!) for almost as long.
Microsoft is seeing WW decline in Windows OS share but notes much iin the specific and very large business/government space.
So QC has Microsoft on some level on board else this press release is like so many press releases, a marketing and propaganda only read.

 

[caribbeanblue]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

 

[McApple21]

Snapdragons are not in any way crap compared to Apple silicon. They compete very well. We are talking about a 10-15% differential and sometimes Qualcomm comes out ahead on the benchmarks.

One thing people forget is that Qualcomm has experience with high performance, custom ARM cores and silicon.

They had the Centriq. It had 48 cores running at 2.6GHz with six channels of DDR4 and 60MB of L3.

Qualcomm is not new to desktop and server chips.

People always forget that Apple has everything in-house from hardware to software stacks on tight control of vertical integration. QCOM on the other hand is open and license to everyone. They have to deal with many different types of hardware and software for each specific company, not for Q advantage. And the difference between Apple M1 and QCOM top line is not that much really. I read somewhere that 7c/8c Q laptop has 18-hour battery life, in compare with 16 from M1.

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

If Microsoft wants it to happen, they’ll make it happen. Just like Apple’s dev tools make producing a pretty good first effort ARM build trivial (then, the tweaking comes after that), if Microsoft makes it easy for those using it’s dev tools to produce performant apps for both systems, the developers will do it.

The reason Apple’s dev tools make compiling to ARM “trivial” (it often is not) is because most Mac developers are using Apple’s preferred dev tools. Apple pushes developers to use its modern tools and aggressively deprecates old APIs (like Carbon). As a result, most developers are using Apple’s tools and relatively modern APIs, making it much easier to recompile. This is also Apple’s third time switching architectures. Developers on Apple’s platforms know how Apple operates and that they must move aggressively, like Apple, or they will get left behind. Meanwhile on Windows, many big Windows-only devs use all sorts of old tools, old APIs (even Win32 is from the 90’s) and who knows what else. Windows has always run on x86, and backward compatibility is Windows’ biggest advantage (which is why the Windows 11 system requirements are so surprising). Devs knows that Microsoft will not force them to ARM. Heck, even Microsoft’s own Visual Studio is only becoming 64-bit for x86 this year, and an ARM native version is nowhere in sight. If Microsoft can’t even give developers an easy way to develop ARM apps with Windows on ARM devices, why should developers even bother?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Heck, even Microsoft’s own Visual Studio is only becoming 64-bit for x86 this year, and an ARM native version is nowhere in sight. If Microsoft can’t even give developers an easy way to develop ARM apps with Windows on ARM devices, why should developers even bother?

My assumption is that Microsoft and Qualcomm wouldn’t even be headed in this direction unless there was some behind the scenes work going on to make the platform attractive to developers. If they’re nowhere near an ARM native version of Visual Studio (not even behind the scenes), then that makes this Qualcomm effort REEEALLY questionable in my mind.

 

[One2Grift]

People always forget that Apple has everything in-house from hardware to software stacks on tight control of vertical integration. QCOM on the other hand is open and license to everyone. They have to deal with many different types of hardware and software for each specific company, not for Q advantage. And the difference between Apple M1 and QCOM top line is not that much really. I read somewhere that 7c/8c Q laptop has 18-hour battery life, in compare with 16 from M1.

The undervaluing of this is head scratching.
Yes, to see the other side, there is value in disparate organizations being able to look at things differently, however, many of the individual players will also be competitors on some varying levels. This in and of itself makes just the process of information interchange have added red tape. Plus every separate part may have higher business priorities jump in to slow the process down.

Intra company departments will have pushback with each other. So it won't be absolutely smooth as glass anywhere but Apple's full in house makes it much closer to smooth as glass. Idea to prototype to beta to market is going to be wider encompassing and quicker. That is a very undervalued item in a tech market that can see just a several months a single feature delay cause damage.

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

My assumption is that Microsoft and Qualcomm wouldn’t even be headed in this direction unless there was some behind the scenes work going on to make the platform attractive to developers.

Why would you assume that? Windows on ARM has been around for nearly a decade (Windows RT in 2012). It wasn’t attractive to developers then. It isn’t attractive to developers now. That hasn’t stopped Microsoft, Qualcomm, and OEMs from shipping crappy Windows on ARM devices.

If they’re nowhere near an ARM native version of Visual Studio (not even behind the scenes), then that makes this Qualcomm effort REEEALLY questionable in my mind.

I can’t say what’s going on behind the scenes at Microsoft. What I can say is that there currently is not native VS for ARM and no timeline on when/if it is coming. Given that VS still isn’t 64-bit (and AMD64 chips first shipped in like, 2003), there’s no reason to be optimistic. But VS is a great example of why niche Windows-only software will not be going to ARM anytime soon. VS is an old, huge app with massive dependencies on who knows what. Porting it to ARM would be very difficult. And if even Microsoft can’t port their own apps to ARM, why on earth would Autodesk, Intuit, and the like be able to?

 

[One2Grift]

Huh? So they’re going to have better chips than Arm, but just in case they’re not they’ll use Arm based chips?

They only left out "but if anything even better comes along, we'll use that instead".

The QC statement in that framework looks nothing more than a marketing and media press release.
As Unregistered4U said, if MS isn't on board then QC is just playing media time.

 

[cgsnipinva]

Qualcomm has the ability and resources to address Apple's challenge. The question is time. Apple did not just pull their chip design and engineering capabilities out of a hat. The did work on the down low for a few years before the first A Processor - then spend 7-10 years building out their team and investing in their capabilities. Now with the M1 chip they can roll on that investment and increase power and performance of this line with little to moderate effort.

Not sure if Qualcomm is near that point.

 

[itti]

nuvia is basically selling reimplemented A12 plus replicate in terms of design. QCOM is fortunate to find some know-hows in Apple. So I am sure they will have competitive chips soon.

 

[0924487]

So Qualcom says Apple can’t compete with them in modem chips but Also says that Qualcom can compete with Apple in ARM chip design?

By digging over Apples Engineers.

 

[MacBH928]

Yes, fight puppets fight!

on a serious note, who will use Qualcomm's whatever architecture they are making? all the OSs and software is made for x86