Qualcomm's Apple M1 competitor is on track for late 2023

[Daniel Sims]

In brief: Qualcomm bought Nuvia last year and then announced that together they would release laptop chips that would compete with Apple's M1 sometime this year. However, comments in a recent earnings call have either pushed those plans back or shed more light on them.

During a quarterly earnings call this week, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said the development of its upcoming Arm-based notebook CPU, which Nuvia is designing, is on track. However, he also said Qualcomm expects it to arrive in late 2023, over a year after its previously disclosed release window.

Qualcomm bought Nuvia in March 2021 to get ahead in the laptop CPU market, specifically to catch up to Apple's M-series processors. That summer, the company said it planned to release a Nuvia-designed laptop chip in 2022.

After the earnings call, Qualcomm told PCWorld that its roadmap has been consistent since its presentation last November. It said it would sample the Nuvia processor in 2022 and release products using it in 2023. Qualcomm reiterated that Amon's mention of 2023 referred to product launches. Either this was the plan from the beginning, or the delay occurred last fall.

Qualcomm and Nuvia could end up sampling their CPU right up against the launch of the next generation of Apple chips. Apple is rumored to have several M2-powered devices planned for this year, with M3 expected next year.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/94412-qualcomm-nuvia-m1-competitor-laptop-chips-track-late.html

 

[zamroni111]

It will fail like 8cx if qualcomm force feed 5g modem into it again.

For non phone devices, modem is better not to be in same package as cpu because that cellular modem generates lots of heat.
Ideally even the modem should be near antenna, which is in laptop screen, due to high feeder loss of electromagnetic wave in metal wire

 

[kiwigraeme]

So what is Qualcomm ? see many Americans don't think highly of it .
It is just a bunch of patents that they wield?
Is it they can't make great SOCs - just OK ones
They are a huge company - is it they are lazy and just do enough .
Laptop market - ha - what with Apple , AMD with it's super upcoming APU - Intel and Google

Maybe the Nuvia part is good .

Really interested why is products are not exciting - yes it does 5G well apparently

Even hope Samsung, MediaTek give them a kicking - hate lazy shortsighted companies - this not some Russia pole-vault guy getting a bonus evetime he breaks his WR by 1 cm ( yeah there was such a guy - did just enough to break it and stop - to make future bonuses easier ). Android needs great SOCs - think this is why Google is ramping up - due to cynical QC .
Intel is stepping up - new CEO and all - Can QC do it ?

 

[Morphine Child]

If it's for 2023 then it should probably be M3 competitor?

 

[fps4ever]

If it's for 2023 then it should probably be M3 competitor?

Exactly, if it's that late there may be no reason for these chips unless its for cheap knock off tablets.

 

[defaultluser]

Exactly, if it's that late there may be no reason for these chips unless its for cheap knock off tablets.

Right, it will mean they will be faster than stock arm, but woefully behind Apple (like Krait vs Swift)

Or, it could be another quietly-buried custom core, like Kryo and Centriq

My bet is on the second option!

 

[psycros]

What laptop customer is this chip meant for? If its using ARM architecture then I would assume Chromebooks. If its something new then nobody is going to care.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

I hope they can release something that doesn't suck, we need more cpu options, but I will believe it when I see it. They have lost the plot on phone SoC. And let's face it this will be competing against M3, Meteor lake P and Zen 4 Phoenix. It will be a blood bath IMO.

 

[Dd663]

If it's for 2023 then it should probably be M3 competitor?

Nah, it'll probably still be a competitor to M1. I think the headline is spot on.

Someone should make a RISC-V (if that's what it's called) competitor to M1.

 

[Just Some Dude]

What laptop customer is this chip meant for? If its using ARM architecture then I would assume Chromebooks. If its something new then nobody is going to care.

Probably for Windows laptops

 

[defaultluser]

Nah, it'll probably still be a competitor to M1. I think the headline is spot on.

Someone should make a RISC-V (if that's what it's called) competitor to M1.

Why?

There is no supported app infrastructure (neither on Linux or windows), which will be the target of such a Qualcomm laptop!

the memory-space / I/o is even less mature than ARM on Linux, and yet, see how hard it is to get a simple GPU working:

Why do you see any benefit in Risc v outside socs containing no-memory-visible soft-cores? You're still going t have to repeat this same painful process (each time you improve an arch to be as fast as x86. you get a new push for being able to expand/improve peripheral options.)

 

[Dd663]

Why?

There is no supported app infrastructure (neither on Linux or windows), which will be the target of such a Qualcomm laptop!

the memory-space / I/o is even less mature than ARM on Linux, and yet, see how hard it is to get a simple GPU working:

Why do you see any benefit in Risc v outside socs containing no-memory-visible soft-cores? You're still going t have to repeat this same painful process (each time you improve an arch to be as fast as x86. you get a new push for being able to expand/improve peripheral options.)

I don't know. Maybe the idea of an entirely open CPU architecture is cool?

 

[defaultluser]

I don't know. Maybe the idea of an entirely open CPU architecture is cool?

You can stop pretending that open RISC is somehow unique!

OpenPOWER Foundation

openpowerfoundation.org

https://www.oracle.com/servers/technologies/opensparc-overview.html

https://www.mips.com/mipsopen/

There are open-source architecture options in that list, and several existing cores to start with!

The reason ARM defeated all of these is not because its inherently superior - just that there re hundreds of millions of high-margin devices shipped every quarter pay for a lot of R&D. Thus, Apple and Qualcomm will always make it near-impossible or anything that new to catch-up

 

[zamroni111]

What laptop customer is this chip meant for? If its using ARM architecture then I would assume Chromebooks. If its something new then nobody is going to care.

Apple m1* uses arm architecture and they are high performance laptop