Qualcomm aims to take on Apple Silicon in nine months

AppleInsider

Qualcomm has Apple Silicon in its sights, with the mobile chip producer producing ARM-based PC processors that it hopes can compete with Apple's M-series lineup.

Apple has received praise for its debut Mac chip lineup, including the M1 and the newly launched M1 Pro and M1 Max. However, Qualcomm intends to take on Apple in the market, with a major push to launch a new range of ARM-based system-on-chips aimed at notebooks and desktops.

Announced during Qualcomm's investor day, the company says it is working on its "Next-generation CPU." In an image of the presentation shared by Sascha Segan, the chips will be ARM-compatible CPUs that will offer an "M-series competitive solution for the PC."

Qualcomm just promised an Apple M series competitor PC chipset in "nine months" or so. Acknowledge they have weakness in CPU and are using Nuvia acquisition to fix that. #qualcomm pic.twitter.com/CdBsHhKQKr

-- Sascha Segan (@saschasegan)

November 16, 2021

The chips will be designed by the Nuvia team, a design firm founded by former Apple staff that Qualcomm acquired for $1.4 billion in January. The trio who formed Nuvia previously worked on teams involved with Apple's A-series chip designs.

Hints of the plan surfaced in a July interview, when Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said the company needed to produce its own silicon if its customers want to take on Apple directly.

Qualcomm says the new chips will provide high levels of performance and battery life, echoing the benefits of Apple's M1 range. As well as for PCs, the chip design will also be modified to work in mobile devices, vehicles, and for use in data centers.

The company's chief technology officer, Dr. James Thompson, intends for hardware samples to be shipped to device vendors in nine months, with the first devices using the chips being sold to consumers in 2023.


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scout6900

Late to the party.  

bakerzdosen

At this point, it's entirely up to Apple if they want to maintain a lead or merely compete with the likes of Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm.

9 months is a long time and in theory Apple has had its M2 (or whatever - the next gen M-series chip) in the pipeline for a while now, so we should see products based on it by it then - and possibly see products based on the equivalent of an M2 Max by then as well. Plus, as Qualcomm doesn't make their own products, there will most likely be a delay between the 9 months date and the date that consumers actually have a product in hand using those CPUs.

That is the interesting thing about predictions. You're either basing your predictions on competitors' current gen stuff - which will be outdated by the time your product comes to market - or you're making assumptions about your competitors' next gen product. The problem with that is that Apple isn't like Intel. It offers no roadmap of its CPUs ahead of time. So Qualcomm is either guessing or they're setting their sites WAY too low.

Either way, seems like an interesting promise they're making.

auxio

Apple is the kick in the -ss that other companies need to do better.  It happened with the iPhone and the cell phone industry too.  But they never admit it: they just change their roadmap and claim that it was an obvious move or that it was because the technology wasn't there to do it before.  Reactive instead of proactive.

sflocal

scout6900 said:

Late to the party.  

You mean like Apple was to the cell phone party?

waveparticle

bakerzdosen said:

At this point, it's entirely up to Apple if they want to maintain a lead or merely compete with the likes of Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm.

9 months is a long time and in theory Apple has had its M2 (or whatever - the next gen M-series chip) in the pipeline for a while now, so we should see products based on it by it then - and possibly see products based on the equivalent of an M2 Max by then as well. Plus, as Qualcomm doesn't make their own products, there will most likely be a delay between the 9 months date and the date that consumers actually have a product in hand using those CPUs.

That is the interesting thing about predictions. You're either basing your predictions on competitors' current gen stuff - which will be outdated by the time your product comes to market - or you're making assumptions about your competitors' next gen product. The problem with that is that Apple isn't like Intel. It offers no roadmap of its CPUs ahead of time. So Qualcomm is either guessing or they're setting their sites WAY too low.

Either way, seems like an interesting promise they're making.

The Windows market share overwhelms Mac OS market share. Qualcomm can afford to produce an inferior competitor to M-series chip. It only needs to attract a small fraction of Windows users that will be already more than Mac OS. 

blastdoor

sflocal said:

scout6900 said:

Late to the party.  

You mean like Apple was to the cell phone party?

And given that the 'Personal Computer' party started in the 1970s, Apple was also 'late' in introducing the M-series. 

If a party is never-ending, then being late isn't that big of a deal. 

command_f

This will be interesting.

I wonder how much of Apple's architecture and design the Qualcomm/Nuvia team know and how much of that might be protected by patents. Regardless, competition must be good for us as consumers. Here's to the M2, whatever it may be.

shareef777

sflocal said:

scout6900 said:

Late to the party.  

You mean like Apple was to the cell phone party?

Right!? It's not like Apple was the first ARM based PC. Windows RT was a thing almost 10 years ago! Being late doesn't mean you can't be the best. Apple is pretty much "late" to EVERYTHING, but they take their time, analyze, and get it done right.

blastdoor

This is the thing that could truly be the beginning of the end of x86. 

If Microsoft provides Rosetta-like support for running x86 in emulation under Windows on these Nuvia chips, then Nuvia has the potential to totally dominate the PC laptop market. That's a Big Deal. And I'm sure they won't stop there. Next stop, server room (although they claim that's not on their radar right now, you know it has to be). 

Will Intel and AMD eventually dump x86 to make ARM chips instead? 
Will Intel's future mostly be as a foundry making Nuvia chips?

Interesting times!

mr lizard

scout6900 said:

Late to the party.  

At least they’re at the party. Whereas Intel are somewhere else entirely, trying to convince themselves that they can do 3nm when they can’t currently cope with 10nm.  

Some serious competition in this space is welcomed. 

auxio

sflocal said:

scout6900 said:

Late to the party.  

You mean like Apple was to the cell phone party?

Can you honestly say that you truly enjoyed using the cell phones from the pre-iPhone period?  T9 typing (and later tiny keyboards which forced you to have a tiny display), no way to transfer the contacts you entered to a computer (at least, not to a Mac) and so you had to re-enter them on every new phone, no upgrade path for your OS (throwaway technology since you had to buy a new phone to update), having to pay extra on your phone plan for each app you wanted to use, etc, etc.  There was very little technical vision in the cellular industry until Apple came along, just a bunch of haphazard technology.

blastdoor

lmasanti said:

They are missing a big point!

If we take into account the interviews with Apple's execs on charge of chip design, hardware design, software design… they got what they got because of the deep integration.
The M1 Max has a ProRaw silicon because pro users use it… and the software side give access to it.

It is not anymore the ‘chip in one side’ —Intel—, the ‘OS in another side’ —Microsoft—, and the ‘device manufacturer in another side’ —Dell, Lenovo, HP…—.

It is integrated design manufacturing operation…

(But, maybe, in 9 month they could deliver pre-production chips similar to last November 2020's M1 chips…)

Could be that integration is more important for innovating, less important for copying. 

Now that apple has shown the benefits of this design, it might be easier for Nuvia to get Microsoft’s attention and support on the software side. It might also be easier to sell OEMs on the concept, too.

Xed

I wish them the best. They are the most likely to be able to be in the competition ballpark with Apple, but I doubt that will happen in 9 months.

chadbag

sflocal said:

scout6900 said:

Late to the party.  

You mean like Apple was to the cell phone party?

I'd say Apple was right on time to the cell phone party. And the fact that the cell phone industry came kicking and screaming along with Apple is pretty good proof.  

On time does not equal first.  On time means when you have the technology available to make an impact or change the paradigm.   Having owned the original iPhone, the technology was just starting to be available, HW wise, to start to achieve that paradigm change the iPhone brought.  

chadbag

blastdoor said:

Will Intel and AMD eventually dump x86 to make ARM chips instead? 
Will Intel's future mostly be as a foundry making Nuvia chips?

Interesting times!

Kind of funny and sad and ironic as Intel has had ARM based tech and processors for over 20 years.  Intel has XScale processors, based on ARM, which they got through DEC's StrongARM processor family that they acquired with DEC'S processor business purchase. StrongARM was actually developed by DEC for Apple for use with the Newton MessagePad.  

auxio

shareef777 said:

sflocal said:

scout6900 said:

Late to the party.  

You mean like Apple was to the cell phone party?

Right!? It's not like Apple was the first ARM based PC. Windows RT was a thing almost 10 years ago! Being late doesn't mean you can't be the best. Apple is pretty much "late" to EVERYTHING, but they take their time, analyze, and get it done right.

Exactly.  When I read the story of the creation of the iPhone and how they were sitting around and talking how much they hated their cell phones, I immediately reacted with "YES!".  I refused to get a cell phone for the longest time because of how viscerally I hated the technology.  Just because you're the first to create something doesn't mean you should get bragging rights.  Anyone can come up with a Rube Goldberg Machine.  I certainly give credit to those who were behind the creation of wireless networks and the low-level hardware/software needed to make wireless communication possible, but not to those who simply packaged it all up into a junk product to make a quick buck.

verne arase

bakerzdosen said:

At this point, it's entirely up to Apple if they want to maintain a lead or merely compete with the likes of Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm.

9 months is a long time and in theory Apple has had its M2 (or whatever - the next gen M-series chip) in the pipeline for a while now, so we should see products based on it by it then - and possibly see products based on the equivalent of an M2 Max by then as well. Plus, as Qualcomm doesn't make their own products, there will most likely be a delay between the 9 months date and the date that consumers actually have a product in hand using those CPUs.

That is the interesting thing about predictions. You're either basing your predictions on competitors' current gen stuff - which will be outdated by the time your product comes to market - or you're making assumptions about your competitors' next gen product. The problem with that is that Apple isn't like Intel. It offers no roadmap of its CPUs ahead of time. So Qualcomm is either guessing or they're setting their sites WAY too low.

Either way, seems like an interesting promise they're making.

Apple Silicon has been under development for something like 13 years - what keeps it moving forward is Apple's vision of a future product pipeline.

We'll see how much of Apple technology those Nuvia people got out the door - and there may be litigation if Apple starts see trade secrets or Apple IP in whatever comes out of Nuvia's front door.

Silicon development is just as iterative as software development - maybe more so. I'm sure there's been a lot of development and innovation happened since that group went out seeking greener pastures. Wait 'til they see what a real silicon design house is like, and all the legacy stuff they have to drag around like Marley's chains to stave off litigation from legacy customers.

JWSC

auxio said:

Apple is the kick in the -ss that other companies need to do better…

Yes, the industry appeared to be snoozing.  No more.  The Qualcomm SoC may not perform quite as well as M Series SoCs due to the unique aspects of each particular mobile device it goes into.  But won’t matter.  Qualcomm sales will be strong because the SoC marketplace is everybody versus Apple.  But it’s all good.  With competition everybody wins.

Which leads one to wonder, where does Intel fit in?  Would they dare undermine their historic cash cow of x86 architecture (their last bastion of financial safety) by moving to a RISC architecture?  Or will they double down on x86?  One wonders if it is even possible to create a low power x86 based SoC.  The only thing we can say with any confidence is that the x86 architecture can’t last in its current form.  Intel will have to make a bold move sooner rather than later.

avon b7

scout6900 said:

Late to the party.  

Wasn't QC actually in the ARM based SoCs for PC/laptops before Apple with the Snapdragon 8cx and 7c compute platforms? 

Beats

sflocal said:

scout6900 said:

Late to the party.  

You mean like Apple was to the cell phone party?

Apple was pretty early to the iPhone party but if you must move the goalposts…

”Apple didn’t invent the cell phone! lol!”
”Apple didn’t invent the computer! lol”
“Apple didn’t invent the letter ‘i’! lol”
”Apple didn’t invent the rectangle! lol!”
”Apple didn’t invent the watch! lol!”
”Apple didn’t invent the computer chip! lol”


…but somehow everyone else is exempt from these goalposts.