Back in January 2021, Qualcomm acquired Nuvia, a company that should support its efforts to create custom ARM processors. From the very beginning, Qualcomm stated its plans quite directly. These chips are planned to compete with Apple M1 processors, and the first chipsets will be available to Windows laptops OEMs in the second half of 2022. During the company’s conference call, CEO Cristiano Amon confirmed that the company is preparing to ship consumer products at the end of 2023, about a year after sampling begins.
There are two ways to make chipsets. One of them is to license architecture and design from ARM, as do companies such as Qualcomm and MediaTek. You get cores like Cortex X2, Cortex A710 and so on. They are assembled in a package with a reference design by ARM. Another option is to use a set of instructions and develop your own kernels, which is what Apple is doing, and this is what Qualcomm is going to do when Nuvia technology hits the market.
This puts Qualcomm in a much better position than other OEMs. You have to understand that if Nuvia chip samples are delivered to OEMs in just a few months, the second half of 2023 will seem like a very long waiting period for product delivery. This is because the PC market is developing slowly. As for the Intel processors, OEMs receive chipsets on hand in 12-18 months. Now these terms seem correct.
Unfortunately, this schedule makes additional difficulties for Qualcomm. As for mobile processors, ARM announces its new developments at the beginning of the year, and Qualcomm announces a chip based on them at the end of the year. That’s why the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 uses the Cortex X2. However, the new Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 still uses the Cortex X1.
Intel and Apple do not have such a problem, because of in-house development. Intel can test its chips at any time because it doesn’t wait for another company to develop them first. That’s what has changed for Qualcomm with Nuvia technology. It gets a full stack of hardware development.
But Qualcomm will still have to make up for lost time. If the chip, which will be released in late 2023, will compete with the Apple M1, and Apple is already supplying the M2, Qualcomm is still lagging behind, despite a long-standing advantage. However, it is this technology that will give the company the tools it needs to be competitive.
If you’re hoping that what will likely be called the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 will be announced at the Snapdragon Summit in December this year, you probably shouldn’t hold your breath. If this happens, you will have to wait a while before we see the product on sale.
This technology will come to mobile devices as well. Qualcomm has made it clear from the day it announced its acquisition of Nuvia that the technology will be part of the computing portfolio and that it will compete with Apple’s M1, but that’s not the end of the story. We should see new processors throughout the portfolio, but of course, if the PC chip appears in late 2023, mobile chips will not appear in products until 2024.
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