Qualcomm's next-generation chip, defeating "Apple" with Apple?

Author: Zhang Yifan

Editor: Shen Siqi

Source: Hard AI

In the competition among tech giants, the comparison of chip performance has always been a focus. Just when people thought that Apple was far ahead in the mobile chip field, Qualcomm brought an exciting piece of news.

It is the story of Qualcomm catching up with or even surpassing Apple in the next generation Snapdragon 8 gen4, after lagging behind Apple in performance over the past five or six years.

Why? This is a story of Apple chasing Apple.

It is well known that although Qualcomm and Apple both use ARM architecture, they have significantly different chip development strategies.

There are two ways to license ARM chips: one is to directly use ARM-designed CPU architecture, commonly known as public version; the other is to obtain an architecture license from ARM and develop independently.

Apple chose to develop its own chips based on ARM architecture, emphasizing performance. Starting from A5, Apple has been developing its own chips, and thanks to this, Apple has ushered in the era of dominating high-end chips in mobile phones.

On the other hand, Qualcomm has long been directly purchasing ARM's public version designs, leading to its products consistently lagging behind Apple in performance.

As a result, although both companies dominate the high-end mobile SoC market, Qualcomm has always lagged behind Apple in performance, directly causing Android to be suppressed in performance for a long time.

Just when the industry was pessimistic about whether Qualcomm could narrow the gap with Apple, the addition of the NUVIA team injected a shot of adrenaline into Qualcomm.

And the creator of NUVIA is none other than Gerard Williams, a former Apple multi-core chip engineer.

1. NUVIA, a CPU core architecture design company from Apple

In early 2021, Qualcomm spent $1.4 billion to acquire the CPU core architecture design company NUVIA.

This acquisition aims to help Qualcomm achieve its goal of developing its own chips based on ARM architecture.

Looking back, it was because Apple developed the A6 chip based on ARM that it ushered in its era of dominance in the high-end chip field. Subsequently, Apple gradually expanded the application range of its own chips, from iPhone to Mac and then to servers. The well-known M1 chip is a major breakthrough for Apple from the mobile to the computer field.

These breakthroughs in the chip field have raised the expectations of some Apple engineers.

In 2019, Apple's core chip engineer Gerard Williams left the company and founded NUVIA. In order to differentiate from Apple's products, the external statement at that time was that they were dedicated to developing ARM-based server CPUs.

Gerard Williams has an impressive resume. Starting in 2010, he worked on chip development at Apple and was one of the core architects behind Apple CPU and SoC development, participating in the entire process from A4 to M1NUVIA's other two founders also have rich experience in Apple chip development. Manu Gulati joined Apple in 2009 as a SoC architect, participating in projects from A5X to A12X until he left in 2017. John Bruno served as a system architect from 2012 to 2017. In addition, public data shows that most NUVIA employees have backgrounds in Apple and ARM.

Shortly after its establishment, NUVIA launched its self-developed Phoenix architecture in 2020. This architecture doubled the speed of AMD, Intel, Apple, and Qualcomm's CPU chips without increasing power consumption.

At this point, a twist in the story emerged.

It turns out that NUVIA's founder Gerard Williams initially had a bold idea: he wanted to sell this revolutionary chip architecture back to his former employer Apple, letting Apple foot the bill for his 'defection'. While this plan seemed shrewd, Apple viewed it as an 'employee jumping ship', taking the skills learned from the company to start a new venture and then selling the product back at a high price. Although NUVIA's technology was indeed attractive, Apple's top management decisively rejected this seemingly profitable deal.

On one hand, Apple found the exorbitant price offered by NUVIA unacceptable; on the other hand, more importantly, Apple could not accept employees using technology developed in the company to start a business outside and treat the company as a cash cow. Setting such a precedent would undoubtedly bring unpredictable risks to corporate management.

Gerard Williams' carefully planned 'selling' plan fell through, but the technology in his hands was destined to stir up a storm in the chip industry... Qualcomm seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

They keenly perceived that NUVIA, this rising star, might be the key to breaking the deadlock in chip development. Therefore, in 2021, Qualcomm decisively took action and brought NUVIA under its wing.

The subsequent release of the Snapdragon X Elite shocked the industry even more.

The debut of the Snapdragon X Elite is not only an important milestone for Qualcomm in the PC market but also a concentrated display of its technological strength. The perfect combination of NPU, CPU, and GPU gives it an astonishing overall AI computing power of 75 Tops, making it stand out in the industry. And all of this is thanks to the joining of the NUVIA team.

Interestingly, Qualcomm's move is like inviting "insiders" from Apple to compete head-on with Apple.

The NUVIA team's in-depth understanding of Apple chips, combined with their technological accumulation, not only gives Qualcomm the hope of surpassing Apple's M-series chips in performance and efficiency but also the possibility of leaving them behind. When we see the incredible 4.26GHz clock speed of the Snapdragon X Elite, everything seems no longer surprising

2. Snapdragon 8 Gen4 with NUVIA's Phoenix Architecture Redesign to be Released

A major bombshell in the Qualcomm chip world is about to explode! According to insider @jasonwill101, Qualcomm is making final preparations for the comeback of the king.

Their secret weapon is the Snapdragon 8 Gen4 processor, which is being redesigned using NUVIA's Phoenix architecture.

The most eye-catching aspect is its astonishing target frequency of 4.26GHz. It is worth noting that the previous generation Snapdragon 8 Gen3 had a frequency of only 3.3GHz, much lower than Apple's A17 Pro at 3.77GHz. This time, with 4.26GHz, not only has it increased by nearly 30% compared to the previous generation Snapdragon 8 Gen3, but it also surpasses Apple's latest A17 Pro by 13%. Qualcomm's chips, which have always been criticized for their single-core performance, seem to have finally made a qualitative leap.

However, it is puzzling that such a breakthrough was achieved in just over half a year. Could it be that the legendary NUVIA team has already left their mark on Gen4? Could the next generation of Qualcomm chips really be smoother than Apple's?

The industry's attention is all focused on Qualcomm. A "battle of the gods" in the chip world seems to have begun.

3. Qualcomm Faces a New Melee in the ARM Era

Although Qualcomm holds the trump card of NUVIA, it still needs to overcome many obstacles to reach the peak of high-end chips. Lawsuits, ecosystem, and competition are like three great mountains blocking Qualcomm's path forward.

1) Lawsuits

Due to NUVIA's use of ARM's instruction set, Qualcomm, after acquiring NUVIA, has been involved in a patent dispute with ARM. ARM believes that NUVIA's license was terminated in March 2022, but Qualcomm continues to use designs based on these agreements. On the other hand, Qualcomm countersued, claiming that ARM's previous accusations of violating licensing agreements and trademarks were unfounded.

Although with Qualcomm's strong legal capabilities and its status as a major ARM customer, the lawsuit may eventually reach a settlement. However, it is clear that before the official launch of Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon 8 Gen4, the litigation matters need to be properly resolved.

2) Ecosystem

Unlike Apple, which controls both hardware and the iOS ecosystem, Qualcomm only has hardware and lacks a matching software ecosystem. While Microsoft's Windows on Arm program has an exclusive contract with Qualcomm, the lack of ecosystem support has hindered its progressThe Wintel ecosystem is disintegrating, but in the Windows system, Arm CPUs are still a niche player. While NUVIA's architecture is outstanding, without Microsoft's ecosystem support, whether its full potential can be unleashed remains unknown. Microsoft introduced the concept of Windows on Arm (WoA) as early as 2011, and signed an exclusive contract with Qualcomm for the Snapdragonx series. However, due to the lack of supporting ecosystem, it has been struggling to make progress, and this exclusive agreement is set to expire in 2024.

The emergence of ARM has accelerated the disintegration of the Wintel ecosystem. However, in Microsoft's Windows ecosystem, Arm CPUs are still a niche player.

While NUVIA's architecture is excellent, without Microsoft's ecosystem support, whether its potential can be fully realized is still uncertain.

3) Competition

Currently, Intel still dominates the PC market, holding a 72% market share in the laptop CPU market. In response to the demand for AI, Intel has launched the Meteor Lake series of chips.

AMD's Ryzen chips are eyeing the market, and there is also MediaTek collaborating with NVIDIA to develop Arm architecture processors for Windows PCs.

The transition from x86 to ARM architecture has attracted many heavyweight players to compete in the AI PC market. With the help of TSMC's advanced process technology, the previous gaps have been rapidly narrowed, and the pressure on Qualcomm is also evident.

For users, perhaps the best way is to prepare their wallets for the AI PC era