recently, there has been a lot of news about qualcomm.

qualcomm is not a niche chip company. when you mention qualcomm, you will inevitably think of "the king of mobile phone chips", "the company that apple cannot beat", "the company that knows the best about patents in the chip industry"... these labels are accompanied by qualcomm grew until it became a global chip giant.

despite this, when news spread in the industry that qualcomm might acquire intel, the first reaction of many people was "how is that possible?" over the past week, this news has undoubtedly become a hot topic in the chip industry. while everyone is thinking about what happened to intel, this article would like to talk about qualcomm’s chip strength.

01

qualcomm’s early development

the founder of qualcomm, dr. irwin jacobs, was born in new bedford, massachusetts, in 1933. as an undergraduate, he switched to electrical engineering from cornell university's school of hotel administration and received a phd in electrical engineering from the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) in 1959.

after graduating with his phd in 1959, jacobs served as an assistant and assistant professor of electrical engineering at mit until 1966. while working at mit, jacobs collaborated with jack wozencraft on a textbook on the principles of digital communication. this book was published in 1965 and is still used today.

it started in 1966 and ended in 1972. jacobs serves as a professor of computer science and engineering at the university of california, san diego (ucsd).

in 1968, jacobs co-founded linkabit, a company that develops satellite encryption devices. this company merged with m/a-com corporation in 1980.

founded in july 1985 by seven founders including old jacob and university professor vidobiqualcommcompany, jacob sr. and vidobi were both professors and both had their own inventions. in particular, vidobi's coding method at the time was well-known in the communications industry. they initially rented a building next to a cemetery in san diego. a small house, qualcomm was still a very small company at this time.

in the early days of its establishment, qualcomm was engaged in solutions for satellite system mobile communications. on the way home from a visit to a customer, dr. ivan jacob was still thinking about ways to solve the problem. his profound background in communication technology led him to the best choice-cdma.

in 1993, qualcomm proved to the industry that cdma could provide tcp/ip protocol services, making him an early promoter of mobile phone networks.

02

the rise of qualcomm: snapdragon series

qualcomm started with communication technology, but it is inseparable from the snapdragon series as it is known to the public.

in 2007, qualcomm launched the snapdragon s1, which uses a 65nm process and is the world's first single-core mobile product to reach a main frequency of 1ghz, opening the door to ghz for smartphones. for example, the advent of htc desire, which is powered by android and also powered by qualcomm snapdragon qsd8250, has greatly promoted the popularity and development of android phones and smartphones. s1 first adopted the arm v6 architecture, and later developed the scorpion core (arm v7 architecture) for s2.

a year later, qualcomm launched the snapdragon s2, with the main frequency increased to 1.4ghz, the production process upgraded to 45nm, the chip size further reduced, and the power consumption was reduced. the gpu is adreno 205. compared with adreno 200, the performance is doubled, the mobile phone graphics processing is better, and the mobile gaming experience is improved. products such as sony ericsson lt18i and huawei u8800 are equipped with this series of chips.

in 2010, qualcomm launched the snapdragon s3, which was the world's first mobile asynchronous dual-core architecture at the time, with a 45nm process, a main frequency of 1.5ghz, a built-in adreno 220 gpu, and support for 1080p video playback. xiaomi mobile phone 1 and sony lt26i are equipped with this series of products.

in 2012, qualcomm launched the snapdragon s4. the s4 uses the new cpu micro-architecture krait and the 28nm process to integrate the cpu, gpu, modem, etc., including quad-core, dual-core and single-core product lines, covering the high, middle and low price ranges, with built-in adreno 225 gpu, this chip was used in xiaomi 2 at that time.

after the vigorous "doomsday" passed, the world continued to move, but qualcomm decided to end the s series. in 2013, qualcomm introduced new naming methods and levels: snapdragon 800 series, 600 series, 400 series and 200 series.

in 2013, qualcomm launched the snapdragon 800, which uses a 28nm process asynchronous quad-core krait 400 cpu with a maximum frequency of 2.3ghz, integrated adreno 330 gpu, supports a variety of advanced graphics and computing interfaces, and is equipped with a third-generation 4g lte modem. mobile phones equipped with this chip include xiaomi 3, nokia lumia 930/1520/icon,samsunggalaxy s4 lte-a, samsung galaxy round, lg g2, sony l39h/xl39h, lenovo k910, and nexus 5 have established its position as a high-end flagship mobile phone chip.

after that, qualcomm began updating the snapdragon 800 series almost once a year. such an update frequency not only allows the snapdragon series to occupy half of the mobile phone chips, but also begins to have problems with battery life and heat dissipation. some products in the snapdragon series have begun to be nicknamed "fire dragon".

the snapdragon 810 was the first to adopt the 20nm process technology. it has an eight-core architecture of quad-core cortex-a57 + quad-core cortex-a53 and adreno 430 gpu. it supports a variety of advanced functions, but has problems such as poor battery life and high heat generation. since then, snapdragon 810 the dragon series began to be called "fire dragon". in addition to chip design, the heating problem is also caused by issues such as process technology and the combination of mobile phone software and hardware.

the last generation of the snapdragon 800 series is the snapdragon 888/888+, which is built using samsung's 5nm process. it adopts a three-cluster cpu architecture of 1 + 3 + 4. the ultra-large core is based on the cortex-x1 architecture, and the gpu is upgraded to adreno. 660, the image rendering speed and energy efficiency ratio are improved, vrs is added, equipped with the sixth-generation ai engine, the computing power is improved, and the spectra 580 designed by 3 isp is launched for the first time in terms of imaging.

in 2021, qualcomm launched a new flagship chipset, snapdragon 8 gen 1, which also uses samsung's 5nm process and is equipped with an armv9 architecture 8-core processor, the latest adreno graphics chip, and x65 5g modem.

on may 20, 2022, qualcomm announced the snapdragon 8/8+ gen 1, which is based on the 4nm process, but is produced using the tsmc process.

in 2023, the snapdragon 8 gen3 cpu core adopts a 1+5+2 configuration, and the adreno gpu supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing with global illumination and the unreal engine 5.2 engine. it is the first snapdragon x75 5g modem with a 5g advanced connection system.

recently, industry insiders have said that qualcomm may launch a new flagship chip series - snapdragon 8 elite in october this year, which is expected to debut on the xiaomi 15 series.

03

qualcomm now: pathfinder pc

qualcomm's more than 10 years of experience in mobile phone chips has allowed the company to accumulate experience in both cpu and gpu technologies. naturally, qualcomm set its sights on another market - mobile pcs.

qualcomm's exploration in the field of pc chips has gone through twists and turns.

in 2012, when microsoft released windows rt, an operating system based on arm architecture, qualcomm announced its strong support. although the subsequent surface rt was not equipped with qualcomm pc chips, its pc intentions were revealed. in 2016, qualcomm reached a cooperation with microsoft, and the snapdragon processor was fully compatible with windows 10. in 2017, the snapdragon 835 mobile pc platform was launched, and it cooperated with major pc manufacturers such as lenovo, hp, and asus to test the waters. in 2018, qualcomm released the snapdragon 850 and launched the yoga c630 equipped with the chip with lenovo; at the end of the year, it launched the 7nm laptop chip snapdragon 8cx series. since then, qualcomm has continued to improve its pc chip product line, such as the release of snapdragon 8c for mainstream platforms and snapdragon 7c for entry-level platforms, which together with snapdragon 8cx form a complete pc platform product line.

in 2024, qualcomm released the snapdragon x elite and a new level of snapdragon x plus chips.

snapdragon x elite uses tsmc’s 4nm process. the cpu is equipped with qualcomm's self-developed oryon architecture, 12 high-performance cores, and the highest frequency can reach 3.8ghz. it is equipped with qualcomm's self-developed oryon architecture, 12 high-performance cores, and the highest main frequency can reach 3.8ghz (the test model is a 3.4ghz low-frequency version). the low-frequency version achieved a single-core score of 2418 and a multi-core score of 13631 in the geekbench6 test. the single-core performance is close to the apple m2, and the multi-core performance is ahead of the three core versions of the apple m4 and the apple m3 pro (the multi-thread performance is equivalent). in the cinebench 2024 cpu rendering test, single-threaded 107, multi-threaded 1014, the overall performance is close to the ultra 9 version of yoga. the performance when powered by battery is almost the same as when plugged in, and there is no obvious performance loss after unplugging.

the gpu integrates adreno gpu, and the test model has a computing power of 3.8 tflops (the full-blooded version is expected to be stronger). in the 3d mark wild life extreme test, the score was 39.05fps. compared with amd ryzen 7840s and intel core ultra7 155h, it has obvious advantages and is close to apple m2. it has the hexagon npu with an ai computing power of up to 45tops.

in addition, in qualcomm's strong projects, snapdragon x elite has rich connection functions, supporting 5g, wi-fi7 and bluetooth 5.4, etc., to facilitate networking and device connection.

ecologically, qualcomm has cooperated with software and hardware companies. in may 2024, microsoft and global oems announced that the copilot+ function will begin to be experienced on pcs equipped with snapdragon x elite and snapdragon x plus. cooperating oem manufacturers include: acer, asus, dell, hp, lenovo, microsoft, samsung, etc.

after years of dormancy, qualcomm’s pc ecosystem seems to have blossomed overnight. the arrival of the aipc era has changed the landscape of the pc industry.

04

qualcomm’s next stop: risc-v

whether it is mobile phone chips or pc chips, qualcomm's products are building their own chip product matrix around the arm architecture.

in 2023, qualcomm and google announced that they had agreed to expand their cooperation to develop the snapdragon wear platform based on the risc-v instruction set architecture (isa), which is designed for the next generation of wear os products. this announcement announced that qualcomm will release customized solutions based on risc-v. although the current cooperation is focused on smart watches, it may be used for more advanced devices in the future. just like qualcomm's products used to focus on mobile phone products, now they have developed into pc products.

the main processors of wearable devices are usually based on cores with isa developed by arm, including cortex a series cores for computing and cortex m series cores for microcontrollers. all of these cores cost money, and replacing them with risc-v cores will reduce or even eliminate arm's licensing fees.

in the same year, qualcomm and four other important semiconductor companies have officially joined forces to establish quintauris. the company focuses on developing "next generation hardware" based on the risc-v open standard architecture. quintauris's self-proclaimed mission is to provide a single source for supporting risc-v devices. , and promote the standards of the risc-v industry. quintauris' four other partners are bosch, infineon, nordic semiconductor and nxp semiconductors. quintauris said its products will initially focus on the automotive industry and will later be targeted at mobile and internet of things (iot) applications.

here we also introduce qualcomm’s layout in the automotive field.

in january 2014, qualcomm entered the automotive chip market and launched the first-generation automotive digital cockpit platform snapdragon 620a. 620a is based on the snapdragon 600 platform, equipped with adreno 320 gpu, supports 2048*1536 high resolution, and meets the application needs of 4g communications, in-vehicle wifi, cockpit gesture recognition and other applications.

in 2019, qualcomm launched the sa8155p series. the basic design is derived from the snapdragon 855, manufactured using a 7 nm process, with eight cores and a computing power of 8tops. models equipped with snapdragon sa8155p include gac aion lx, wm w6, ideal l9, nio et5, nio et7, and xpeng p5.

in 2023, qualcomm’s fourth-generation snapdragon 8295 will become a new generation of flagship products, including ji yue 01, new mercedes-benz e-class, ideal l7/l8/l9/mega, xpeng x9, ji krypton 007/new ji krypton 001, xiaomi su7 and leapmoon c16, etc., all equipped with qualcomm 8295.

qualcomm launched the snapdragon ride smart driving platform in 2020. by 2024, the ride smart driving platform will have formed a complete lineage from the front-view all-in-one machine (rv1 lite) to supporting urban noa (sa8650p). according to gasgoo statistics, qualcomm's smart cockpit domain control chip shipments in the chinese market will exceed 2.26 million units in 2023, with a penetration rate of 59.2%.

05

write at the end

to sum up qualcomm’s business strategy, it is more like water that permeates everything. obviously, qualcomm’s chip strength is not limited to pcs, and its ambitions are not limited to arm architecture. as qualcomm ceo cristiano amon said: "few companies have the ability to participate in the transformation of so many industries as qualcomm."

finally, let me share a set of figures: in fiscal year 2023, qualcomm’s revenue was us$35.8 billion and its net profit was us$7.2 billion; for comparison, intel’s revenue in 2023 was us$54.2 billion and its net profit was us$1.7 billion. after looking at this set of numbers, combined with qualcomm's chip layout, do you have any different ideas about the rumors of qualcomm acquiring intel?