Friday, July 9th 2021
Qualcomm Wants to Build an M1-Like Processor for PCs
Qualcomm is trying to get into the PC space with their mobile Snapdragon chips, which offer great battery and decent performance. However, so far only Apple managed to get the right formula for developing custom low-power, high-performance chips. It is exactly Apple's M1 processor in question that Qualcomm intends to mimic. According to the recent interview with Qualcomm's new CEO Cristiano Amon, we are informed that Qualcomm plans to produce laptop chips that would directly compete with Apple's. That means that, despite the ecosystem differences of Apple M1 (macOS) and Qualcomm Snapdragon (Windows-on-Arm), the company wants to deliver equal if not better performance and great battery life.
With the recent acquisition of Nuvia, Qualcomm has a team of very talented engineers to back up its claims. The company also recently hired some of the developers behind Apple's M1 chip. The company notes that it will be using only the best solutions for its upcoming SoC, which will include a 5G modem. Mr. Amon has also noted the following:
Sources:
Reuters, via ArsTechnica
With the recent acquisition of Nuvia, Qualcomm has a team of very talented engineers to back up its claims. The company also recently hired some of the developers behind Apple's M1 chip. The company notes that it will be using only the best solutions for its upcoming SoC, which will include a 5G modem. Mr. Amon has also noted the following:
We needed to have the leading performance for a battery-powered device. If Arm, which we've had a relationship with for years, eventually develops a CPU that's better than what we can build ourselves, then we always have the option to license from Arm.
37 Comments on Qualcomm Wants to Build an M1-Like Processor for PCs
QC would have to open up (bootloaders) otherwise there will very little to work with in a Qc PC, like targeted demographic advertising for males age 20-25, up all night sleep all day, lives in grandmas basement, you get the point.
But it's not only about the silicon need to have the right software support Apple did incredible job with Rosetta which is light years ahead of the Microsoft crap support for ARM where you can even properly run a browser let alone any other more demanding software.
I've seen that M1 running Witcher x86 emulated 30FPS which is amazing considering is not a gaming chip plus all the emulation overhead that need to happen for it to run.
M1x should have double the CPU muscle and M1 already destroys both Intel and AMD on the arm optimized software and close on almost everything else.
Also no performance loss when only on battery and exponentially better battery life.
So, I don't think Windows is really the OS we'll be seeing on this M1-like CPU. Someone mentioned ChomeOS and Android - I think this is more so the case.
My gut says there's a link between Web 2.0, advertisement-focused mobile browsing experience that was pushed since the first smartphones, and this response from Qualcomm. It would be in "competition with Apple" but still absolutely complimentary in so far as the web-based services and information collection practices. The best practical example I can think of is watching Youtube on a phone versus a PC
I have a feeling that Intel's x86-based hybrid solution wouldn't be complimentary. Performance aside, it's still x86, and there's a confused incentive to make Windows more like a mobile product, with mobile-oriented advertisement protocols. It's arguably easier (and more profitable to the likes of Google) to just develop an Android OS for an M1 like product with an enhanced application set to compete with MS productivity, and a UX (hardware and software) to match.