Qualcomm Announces the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, Featuring Exceptional On-Device AI Capabilities

[Noyand]

Maybe so we can talk/chat with our phones themselves when we're bored and lonely? Generate random images to jerk fulfill our entertainment itch? Yeah, I have no clue on why we need an entire neural network on our phones.

On device image generation gen AI, wha, why? What is the point? Most other updates seem, at the very least, neat (If a bit overhyped, I doubt that gaming will actually be "Hyper-realistic"), but Image generation? What's the need, what's the point? Who are they targeting with this?

Google is planning LLM to Google assistant, to turn it into a real chatbot. For image generation, there are a ton of apps and filters that can leverage this. Yhea that seems shallow, but those kinds of stuff make a killing.

It seems that on device processing is also more reactive than cloud processing. The latter is favoured when you need to process a massive amount of data or need higher accuracy.

 

[Wirko]

Google is planning LLM to Google assistant, to turn it into a real chatbot. For image generation, there are a ton of apps and filters that can leverage this. Yhea that seems shallow, but those kinds of stuff make a killing.

It seems that on device processing is also more reactive than cloud processing. The latter is favoured when you need to process a massive amount of data or need higher accuracy.

Also think of things like real time video processing and real time voice translation (not just between Mandarin and Arabic but also between angry English and polite English - depending on who you're talking to).

 

[dragontamer5788]

Why do we want AI crammed into even midrange smartphone SoCs? What's the benefit? I'm still waiting for ANY of these companies to prove me that AI will drastically change my daily workflow and improve it meaningfully

Investors will pour money into Qualcomm and their stock prices will rise up, because of a few "AI Headlines".

Oh, do you mean an actual advantage for the chip? Ummm.... slightly faster BF16 and/or INT8 SIMD operations and matrix multiplications?

 

[Kn0xxPT]

Maybe someone have more insites about ARM. Wasn't ARM a branch of Intel, that Intel sold them because they were "useless" ?

 

[dragontamer5788]

Maybe someone have more insites about ARM. Wasn't ARM a branch of Intel, that Intel sold them because they were "useless" ?

XScale was Intel's ARM processor.

ARM always was ARM. ARM never made a chip, ever. ARM just sells chip designs to other companies (such as Intel, Qualcomm, NVidia, AMD, Microchip, TI, etc. etc.). Qualcomm is also a fabless chip company, as in they don't own any factories that can make chips, so they take ARM's design, customize it a bit more, call it a Snapdragon and then finally sends the order to TSMC to build the final chip.

 

[Kn0xxPT]

XScale was Intel's ARM processor.

ARM always was ARM. ARM never made a chip, ever. ARM just sells chip designs to other companies (such as Intel, Qualcomm, NVidia, AMD, Microchip, TI, etc. etc.). Qualcomm is also a fabless chip company, as in they don't own any factories that can make chips, so they take ARM's design, customize it a bit more, call it a Snapdragon and then finally sends the order to TSMC to build the final chip.

Thanks!
So if Intel had pushed more effort on XScale( Intel sold it ) instead of Atom, today it would be another player in the ARM ecosystem.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Thanks!
So if Intel had pushed more effort on XScale( Intel sold it ) instead of Atom, today it would be another player in the ARM ecosystem.

ARMv7 is a very long time ago.

Intel would likely be about the same level of ARM-competitor as Microchip's SAMA5D2 line, which exists today but... its not like a major ARM player.

That's the thing. If you compete on commodity processors (like ARM), there's no guarantee that you'll turn into Apple or Qualcomm. You're far more likely to turn into Ti, Microchip or NXP. Still respectable chipmakers but not the top end. Tech is very much a winner-take-all system, the losers lose everything.

I don't think Intel XScale was ever at the same level of reputation as TI AM335x processors either. I'd say Intel likely made the right choice to pull out but XScale really was long before my time. So maybe you'll find some XScale fanboy out there who can give you more details, lol. But from my more modern lens, I think Intel made the right choice to leave.