For example, the 7 nm EVU process can only be provided by TSMC at present. The design capability of 7nm belongs to the category of chip design, and TSMC belongs to the category of manufacturing, and both are indispensable.
Many friends thought that Huawei's 5G chip took the lead. In fact, Huawei came from behind. The world's first 5G chip is X50 from Qualcomm, which was launched at the end of 20 17. That is to say, if operators and equipment vendors all over the world want to do 5G research, only Qualcomm's chips can be used almost 1 year.
Like Kirin chip, the CPU core on Snapdragon chip is also authorized by ARM, and like Kirin chip, the CPU core on Snapdragon chip is also authorized by ARM. The difference is that the CPU core of Kirin chip is designed in the public version of ARM, but in order to control the cost (after all, like Apple, the chip will be expensive to Xiaomi, vivo and other mobile phones), Qualcomm adjusted the main frequency and cache of the CPU core of ARM, changed the configuration of the core, and optimized some circuit designs (called magic change in the industry).
Because the CPU cores of Snapdragon 855 and Kirin 980 are neck and neck (sometimes Snapdragon leads, sometimes Kirin leads), we can think that they are equal in strength, but Snapdragon uses less materials (cache and large core), which shows the design strength of Qualcomm chip.
Not only Qualcomm is an ARM architecture, but also Huawei and Samsung, including Apple and MediaTek. Both rely on the ARM architecture. However, there are various ways to authorize ARM. First, the processor authorizes only the designed kernel, leaving little room for the factory to play after buying it back.
Qualcomm Xiaolong processor is very powerful because of its own hard power. The era of adopting arm architecture has long passed. At present, Huawei adopts lm public architecture, which has a fatal flaw, that is, there is no way to completely break through the comprehensive performance. For example, after Huawei adopted the arm public architecture, the GPU part has lagged far behind Qualcomm Xiaolong processor and Apple's A series.
The reason why Qualcomm Xiaolong processor is very strong is determined by its own hard power. You know, Qualcomm should be the absolute dominant position in the chip field at present, occupying the absolute market share of Android, and some patents have also strangled the throats of many mobile phone manufacturers.
Generally speaking, the architecture of arm is somewhat similar to that of a model house. Generally speaking, the architecture of arm is somewhat similar to that of a model house, which means that what it can provide is actually a rough house. As for how chip manufacturers decide to build partitions or expand more space and ventilation in decoration, the details are decided by chip manufacturers or mobile phone manufacturers themselves. This is actually more complicated.
Therefore, in theory, it can be considered that Qualcomm has the ability to design the framework at present, and the public version of arm architecture can be adopted at the same time. In addition, Qualcomm also owns the absolute technology patent on the chip, which leads to the monopoly of Qualcomm at present.
In fact, Qualcomm's success in the United States is inevitable. For example, video files, no one will promote their products, but in fact, every family can decode 1080p advanced video playback. These electronic products such as MP4 and tablet computers should also be ready.
Only the communication module is left, arm itself has no communication module, and Apple can only buy it on the sling, which is not good for Apple.
In fact, Qualcomm's success is inevitable. 10 years ago, the penetration of the smartphone market was accompanied by changes in the baseband. But in the past communication field, many people bought an AP chip, which obviously didn't need a baseband, let alone develop a baseband. This has led to a high degree of autonomy, and the combination of basic tapes with semi-urban AP and GPU acquired through acquisition has a higher market threshold.