If in the PC market, Intel is an absolute leader. Of course, AMD makes some competition but it’s not enough to be on the same stage as Intel. The same picture we have in the smartphone market. Qualcomm is the leader but there is MediaTek that is trying to get some market share. However, nothing lasts forever and everything can change. So what if we say that Qualcomm wants to enter the PC processors market? Well, now, this is official. And what’s more surprising this would happen next year.
It turns out Qualcomm is developing a PC processor. The project leader has participated in the development of Apple’s M1.
Qualcomm acquired the Nuvia Arm chip design team in early 2021. But at present, they can only launch new processor samples in 2022 at the earliest, and it is not expected to appear in commercial products until 2023.
Qualcomm representatives shared the company’s second-quarter 2022 earnings forecast in a recent presentation. The company chief Cristiano Amon talked about the company’s plans for the notebook processor market.
We have been working with Microsoft for many years. I think Windows 11, as I mentioned before, is for the first time, you’ll have full support, including 64-bit emulation on ARM. It’s the first time that you actually have a platform, which is ready for commercial and enterprise deployments.
We did — within the quarter launched with Lenovo, the first enterprise ThinkPad. And we have a number of designs with our 8 CX generation 3.
The next step, according to Amon, will be the Nuvia team’s high-performance computer processors. It will be available at the end of 2023.
In addition, a Qualcomm representative confirmed in a letter that the roadmap was laid out for investors last November. Technologist Dr. James Thompson made it clear last November, “We’ll be showing product samples in nine months.”
If the timing given by Dr. Thompson is accurate, the first samples will be available around August 2022, and the real commercial product will arrive in 2023. After all, once Qualcomm completes research and development, the chip needs to be handed over to the OEM for adaptation development. Finally, after a series of processes, we ought to see a finished notebook computer equipped with this processor next year.
Lastly, Amon emphasized twice in his speech that Qualcomm is no longer a “communication” company, it has become a connected processor company for the intelligent edge. Prior to this, we learned that the company intends to create a laptop processor, of which the performance will benchmark Apple’s M1.
