8/16/13 Intel and Qualcomm step up chip battle - FT.com By continuing to use this site you consent to the use of cookies on your device as described in our cookie policy unless you have disabled them. You can change your cookie settings at any time but parts of our site will not function correctly without them. January 11, 2012 1:03 am Intel and Qualcomm step up chip battle By Chris Nuttall in Las Vegas Qualcomm and Intel, respectively the world’s leading mobile phone and PC chipmaker, announced deep incursions into each other’s territory in duelling speeches at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday. A range of devices will form the battleground for semiconductor superpowers that are now closer to matching each other on battery life and performance. Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm’s chief executive, said its latest S4 Snapdragon processor would find its way into laptops before the end of the year. Paul Otellini, Intel’s chief executive, introduced the first smartphone to feature its Atom chips – a Lenovo device that will go on sale in China in the first half of the year. The growth of smartphones and tablets as alternatives to the PC is also producing new alliances. Qualcomm’s processors, based on designs of the UK’s Arm, have enjoyed exclusivity in Windows-based smartphones – a relationship that echoes the old “Wintel” PC partnership between Microsoft and Intel. Intel has established a partnership with Google, adapting its Android operating system to work on Intel’s “x86” designs as well as Arm’s. Mr Otellini and Sanjay Jha, chief executive of Motorola Mobility, the handset maker being bought by Google, announced a multiyear, multidevice strategic relationship, beginning with Motorola shipping smartphones using Atom processors with Android in the second half of the year. Lenovo’s K800 smartphone, available in China in the second quarter, will also run Android and use the Atom Z2460 processor, formerly codenamed Medfield. This is the first system-on-a-chip from Intel to be competitive with chipsets from established mobile phone chipmakers – it marks a dramatic reduction in size and power requirements. It still lacks the multicore capabilities of smartphone and tablet rivals – both Qualcomm and Nvidia are moving to quadcore chips – but Intel said the chips’ hyperthreading technology still enabled multitasking. On the sidelines of the show, Intel executives have been demonstrating a prototype smartphone with features such as its camera’s ability to take 15 8Mp pictures a second in a “burst” mode. They also claim that their work on software means many Android apps will be able to run faster on Intel In depth: International CES chips than comparable Arm-based ones. 2012 Qualcomm will take advantage of Microsoft’s decision to bring Arm compatibility to its latest operating system – Windows 8 – when it is launched later this year. Mr Jacobs, who demonstrated a prototype Windows 8 tablet running on a Qualcomm S4 Snapdragon processor, said 20 manufacturers had more than 70 designs in the pipeline for Snapdragon devices that were not phones. “Your next PC will deliver an always-on, always-connected experience ... something we in the mobile The world’s largest consumer electronics show this year industry know something about,” he said, adding that Qualcomm was talking to PC makers about building sees 2,700 exhibitors thin and light computers with long battery life, based on its chips. displaying their wares in Las Vegas between January 10 and 13 These could challenge the new ultrabook category being pushed by Intel at the show, which has the same features. Mr Otellini said Intel would raise the bar on tablet experiences when Windows 8 was introduced. Its chips would ensure compatibility with the millions of existing applications and devices, as well as supporting Metro, the operating system’s touch-based interface for tablets that www.ft.com/cms/s/2/828b38dc-3be1-11e1-82d3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2c5AVYH7L 1/2 8/16/13 Intel and Qualcomm step up chip battle - FT.com will be offered as an alternative to the standard Windows desktop. Most Popular on Social Networks We are all prisoners of the rise in inequality State of emergency declared as forces storm Cairo protest camps Eurozone recovers in spite of itself Microsoft to fund remake of BBC's sci-fi cult classic 'Blake's 7' Herbalife kept links to Canada pyramid scheme for a decade Berlin and Brussels credit fiscal discipline and reform for eurozone recovery Barack Obama declines to correct his Egyptian mistake Private schools are heading for a crunch Britain should worry about the return of Swampy Android's momentum eats into Apple's bragging rights How would you fare? Questions from last year's economics A-level Egypt takes a step back towards bloodshed and tyranny Norway sees Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Prize hurt salmon exports to China Central banks struggle to convince investors India restricts outward investment to bolster rupee Joan Edwards - a curious case of a generous donation 'Hindenburg Omen' portends fiery crash A simple word of advice - plan ahead US files 'London whale' charges against ex-JPMorgan traders EM de-coupling story was always over-hyped Printed from: Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others. © THE FINANCIAL TIMES LTD 2013 FT and ‘Financial Times’ are trademarks of The Financial Times Ltd. www.ft.com/cms/s/2/828b38dc-3be1-11e1-82d3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2c5AVYH7L 2/2 E # 6 Mobile: Intel Will Overtake Qualcomm In Three Years By Mark , JANUARY 17, 2012 9:00 PM 1. Is A Changing Of The Guard Imminent? When you are done reading this article, you will agree that Intel is going to overtake Qualcomm in three years. We know that Intel's technology hasn't gone into any smartphones yet, while Qualcomm realized more than $4 billion of revenue in the last quarter. So, to make our point, we have to perform a magic trick. All magic tricks have three acts. The first part is called "The Pledge." That's where we do something ordinary: talk about CPU architecture. Any editorial team can do that. The second act is called "The Turn." We take our ordinary article and make it do something extraordinary. This is where we get into the details of chip fabrication and the history of mobile GPUs, something only a few editorial teams can do. Now you're looking for the punchline. You still don't believe Intel has what it takes. But you won't see the secret because you don't know where to look. You don't really want to know. You are waiting to be fooled, and you're not yet ready to clap because writing about CPU architecture, chip fabrication, and mobile graphics isn't enough. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige." Three years ago, Internet Explorer was the industry’s dominant Web browser. Today, Google Chrome is in the lead. Today, Qualcomm is the dominant player in the mobile system-on-a-chip (MSoC) industry. In less than three years, Intel will take that position away. That’s a bold claim, sure. But our team has been following the tech industry for over 15 years, and we’d like to think that experience gives us a unique perspective. We’ve seen AMD and Intel duke it out, ARM overtake MIPS and Super-H, and PowerVR and BitBoys rise from the ashes. MSoCs are going to be a hot topic for the next three years, so you’re going to see a lot of prognostication. You’ll have completely crazy predictions, such as Robert X. Cringley’s. He’s the former tech writer for PBS.org who was once caught faking a Ph.D. from Stanford University and recently predicted that Intel was going to buy Qualcomm. In our analysis, Intel will actually prove itself the company to beat. A Difference Of Opinion White papers and architectural analysis are very different from actual implementation and real-world testing. When most tech writers discuss a company’s developments, they use the abstract. But companies don’t create technologies; individual people do. Take sports teams as an example. The Lakers might be better some years than others, but players like Kobe Bryant and coaches like Phil Jackson make Los Angeles a championship team. Put simply, when a company gets bought, rarely does the buyer want the whole company. Rather, it’s paying a premium for access to certain patents and, more importantly, access to critical human talent within the company. To that end, the future of MSoCs will depend on, first, SoC architecture, second, fabrication skill, and third, graphics technology. FTC disclosure: We own no stock in any of the companies discussed today. We work with all of them, though, and we review hardware that includes technology from each of the involved organizations. 2. The Pledge: CPU Architecture A lot of people assume that all MSoCs are the same. A company takes a licensed core from ARM (say a Cortex-A9 or a Cortex-A15), combines it with a graphics processor like Mali or technology from PowerVR, it adds memory and I/O, and then ships it off to manufacturing. It's suggested, then, that all licensed cores perform exactly the same way. More savvy techies know that ARM is an instruction set, and while companies can buy a fully-capable CPU core from ARM, layout design (such as what Intrinsity did for Apple and Samsung) can improve performance.