Apple stages a 10 Billion dollar divorce from Qualcomm as WinCom begins to form up over in MS laptop land.

This past week Apple also hired away the Qualcomm VP of Chip Design and several of his key development engineers.

These are the same folks who built the Snapdragon 835 SOC that Mickey is sinking their future into.

The very first steps from the new Apple SOC design team -- put together a SOC mounted gigabit radio modem that can operate in all global zones.   Apple has used both Qualcomm and Intel modem/radios in the past, but is unhappy with both these suppliers right now.

Apple will be the fourth major player to do this key element of mobile product design in house.   Intel, Huawei and Mediatek have already completed their "no royalty 100% in house radio design" so that they can break cleanly away from Qualcomm's very spendy radio tech.

Apple has also put together a team to design their own graphics subsystem -- as they are tired of paying for expensive and "not quite good enough" VR Graphics too.

The PC laptop chip of the future will need a Really Good cellular radio/modem as gigabit connectivity is the coming thing.    It will also require VR ready graphics that is 100% keyed into an accepted graphics standard, like the FOSS Vulcan standard for example.   All of these items will be an integrated part of the SOC chipset itself.

Lastly, it is clear that Apple can finally get rid of Intel at will once they have done these things, as Intel actually brings very little to the Gigabite connected Laptop world.   Really, Intel is just good for a non-integrated CPU and a not so great radio which is less than a third of the total needed SOC design package.

Remember, Apple is a large share holding chunk of ARM Holdings, and they already participate in the DynamiQ shared memory and multi-core multi-chipset integration systems and APPLE is already on board with the A75 and A55 core changes.

Apple also funds the very cutting edge of lithography and already has its 5nm lithography in early "at risk" production.    Apple has been running 7nm for nearly a year now and Apple has already accumulated a goodly stockpile of 7nm chipsets for their next iPhone models.

OK, hard ass kicking competition time between Chromebook and MS Chromebookkillers.  

The name of this first bout of the total competition series is "Who is further-est from being completely ready to actually compete".

AND THE WINNER IS .......   both of them.


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In this corner, theSamsung Chromebook Plus has an Intel Core M3 hardware bug and the matching ChromeOS system needs modifications for that flaw because the Intel Core M3  hardware simply isn't right but Samsung has already built the machines and is shipping out the product anyway to the all their pre-order people with promises of "the fix is coming next week".    

Remember, Samsung also has their one step down Rockchip RK3399 ARM based unit COMPLETED and fully operational now and it has been shipping for months now.

Naturally, it is only the Samsung Intel Core M3 based Chromebook Plus unit that is giving everybody fits right about now .....

So it is Google that now has to fix the Intel Core M3 hardware bug by shifting their software around, then pushing the changes out to all the Chromebook Plus machines out there and then keeping track of that bug fix from now on ..... all that just for that one errant, bug laden Intel Core M3 processor based Samsung Chromebook Plus unit.

..... and amazingly enough, Google can handle that sorta stuff, seamlessly & reliably, fixing it from now on until the Samsung Chromebook Plus Intel Core M3  hardware rusts away completely.  
(fixed as of 6/10/17)


========================================


So, in the other corner of the ring Microsoft doesn't have a real ARM OS written and released yet (neither one of the two of them) nor does it have a single real vendor built vendor released physically real ARM laptop that can be bought at this time as we speak.   They got two (2) demo units at the show though, demos that only run on really beefy Intel Core i7 Deluxe $999 Surface Laptops .....  and hey, you can touch them for demo purposes, but you cannot own them.     Got them some carefully selected "shows good" software on them, but it isn't anything that is Win 10 current (it is Win 8 era stuff).

There will be no real fight here because the MS corner is empty, except for a lingering odor of curry poots and the vague holographic imagining of a guy wearing gloves.





ARM based Play Store Chromebooks in general are much further along, with a full software distribution in place with the vast majority of the software being completely written and in good working order, and they do have several dozen real ARM based products sitting at Amazon.com just awaiting for your orders to buy them.  

So, MS is still just pushing BS brown curry poot vapor at the moment, BS brown curry poot vapor that is only running demo on some really really beefy Core i7 demo machines right now.

HOWEVER, IF IT WAS A "BEST PR AND ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT" CONTEST MS's BROWN CURRY POOT VAPOR BULLSHITE WOULD WIN, HANDS DOWN.

    ...... best set of wishful curry poot thinking I have ever seen, ever ......    

People are now questioning if it is all just a Microsoft FUD campaign to keep old loyal Windows people from buying that critical first Chromebook, as after that first Cromebook is tasted over half of the Joe Sixpack user group never go back to Windows again.

Google just mundanely plows along, doing ARM based Play Store stuff for really real and making zero fuss about the whole thing.    MS is having to react to Google, not the other way around .....



MS has certainly won the design contest for the best Venn Diagram product description delineating their pending Chromebookkiller product offerings.




Please do realize that this will change, and that Mickey will indeed come out with a real shippable product and after that happens it will be extensively cross reviewed against the really real price equivalent Chromebooks.    

..... go read that Venn Diagram again --- 'cause there ain't any MS that are really real right now that are anywhere close to being price equivalent to the Google products.....  and this situation may never change.



And we will see who kills whom over the second half of the calendar year.     We got Nvidia and AMD who are now planning on turning loose GPU augmented computing on the masses (since Intel has no new CPU power levels to show anybody) and their "wonderful new Intel memory stuff" isn't really any better than anybody else's new memory stuff.

Both Google and Nvidia have also prepped commercial implementations of AI based on their takes on massively parallel chipsets that hale from GPU tech, not from CPU tech at all.   AMD is integrating cores of both tech types into their Ryzen line of CPU/GPU products as AMD sees them as complementary processes.   These are massive seismic shifts in computing power -- 1,000 times more throughput kinds of shifts .....

Google buys into several standards things that will permit them to move forward from here,   FOSS Vulcan tech (same stuff that AMD is now putting into all their chipsets) and Google also believes in and uses the ARM DynamIQ standards from the ARM Automotive side of things as well --  using the newest big little core types from ARM that also incorporate all of these items.

The computing world is getting ready to make a warp speed jump, and Intel and MS are not ready yet, way way not ready yet ......

https://liliputing.com/2017/06/intel-makes-not-subtle-threat-qualcomm-microsoft-
plans-emulate-x86-tech-arm-chips.html

Protecting x86 ISA Innovation     .....  i.e. the Wincomm Snapdragon 835 emulation chromekillers just died a hard early death .....

Intel invests enormous resources to advance its dynamic x86 ISA, and therefore Intel must protect these investments with a strong patent portfolio and other intellectual property rights. The following graph shows that relentless instruction set innovation translates into a deep and dynamic patent portfolio with over 1,600 patents worldwide relating to instruction set implementations.



Intel carefully protects its x86 innovations, and we do not widely license others to use them. Over the past 30 years, Intel has vigilantly enforced its intellectual property rights against infringement by third-party microprocessors. One of the earliest examples, was Intel’s enforcement of its seminal “Crawford ’338 Patent.” In the early days of our microprocessor business, Intel needed to enforce its patent rights against various companies including United Microelectronics Corporation, Advanced Micro Devices, Cyrix Corporation, Chips and Technologies, Via Technologies, and, most recently, Transmeta Corporation. Enforcement actions have been unnecessary in recent years because other companies have respected Intel’s intellectual property rights.

However, there have been reports that some companies may try to emulate Intel’s proprietary x86 ISA without Intel’s authorization. Emulation is not a new technology, and Transmeta was notably the last company to claim to have produced a compatible x86 processor using emulation (“code morphing”) techniques. Intel enforced patents relating to SIMD instruction set enhancements against Transmeta’s x86 implementation even though it used emulation. In any event, Transmeta was not commercially successful, and it exited the microprocessor business 10 years ago.

Only time will tell if new attempts to emulate Intel’s x86 ISA will meet a different fate. Intel welcomes lawful competition, and we are confident that Intel’s microprocessors, which have been specifically optimized to implement Intel’s x86 ISA for almost four decades, will deliver amazing experiences, consistency across applications, and a full breadth of consumer offerings, full manageability and IT integration for the enterprise. However, we do not welcome unlawful infringement of our patents, and we fully expect other companies to continue to respect Intel’s intellectual property rights. Strong intellectual property protections make it possible for Intel to continue to invest the enormous resources required to advance Intel’s dynamic x86 ISA, and Intel will maintain its vigilance to protect its innovations and investments.

Steven Rodgers is executive vice president and general counsel for Intel Corporation. Richard A. Uhlig is an Intel Fellow in Intel Labs and director of Systems and Software Research.

Oh you Chromekiller boys, yeah, all you new Qualcomm 835 guys .......  Intel wishes to have a word with your lawyers if you aren't too busy at the moment, all running around rapidly emulating Intel's carefully patented and RESTRICTED x86 instruction set stuff already ......

 And between the lines is Intel's clear intentions to join in with the group of old large patent trolls who love to stifle other folks progress in order to line their own pockets.

In this sort of environment you can see the wisdom of Google in cranking up a brand new modern code based OS system that has NO OLD ROOTS to go get sued over and derailed over again and again, etc. etc.

Mickey me boyo -- go write you some virgin ARM code for Win 10 and quit screwing around trying to cut corners.

Intel is truly suffering from a bout of non-decisive non-direction that took place over a year ago.    

Intel decided to hang with 14nm while everybody else went down to 10nm.   Intel then lied out their butts and said their 14nm was "same a everybody else's 10nm" and then they tried to utilize their fancy new memory to make it so functionally -- but that didn't work out as planned.  

Qualcomm 835 and AMD Ryzen proceeded to kick Intel's butt and then MS jumped ship on Intel over to Qualcomm as well.   Apple then jumped ship on Qualcomm over to their own homegrown ARM processors (with base-band modems and radios included) and then hit Qualcomm with a big arsed separation lawsuit as well.   Apple is currently using some not so nice wrong voltage out of date Intel radio/modems, as a stopgap measure until they can design and build their own radio/modems in house (run at TSMC as part of the entire Apple SOC package).  

Apple building their own base-band, radios and modems next year means relatively soon radio/base-band death for Intel and then later on for Qualcomm as well .... within the next 2-3 years anyway.   The Orientals are busy doing the same thing as Apple is doing as Qualcomm really isn't anybody's favorite supplier at the moment (kinda like Intel, huh?)  

Qualcomm key employees are being head hunted and are jumping ship by the dozens .....

Intel is now reacting to all of this by going all short term x386 patent lawsuit threatening -- doing the narsty legal thing on all of their old buddies trying to patent force them to use non-current Intel not-a-SOCs and Intel's various outdated this and that high voltage componentry as well.  

This sort of action is completely derailing MS's new Chromekillers and it is really messing Qualcomm up as they were counting on the enlarged Snapdragon 835 $$$ volumes to bolster them up for the rest of this year.

This situation really hurts when taken along with all the other things that are going wrong in legal land for Qualcomm at the moment.   Qualcomm is being sued for 10's of Billions in every nation in the Far East for "Actions in Restraint of Trade" and so far has lost each and every case tried in an Eastern court.  

Qualcomm's current merger partner NXP Semiconductors is kicking them out of the merger bed now because of these growing problems and Intel is also acting to block Qualcomm's move to get into MS big round sticky stinky bed in Intel's place.  

NEWS FLASH, THE EU SAYS NO DEAL TO THE NXP/QUALCOMM MERGER, NO FRICK'N WAY JOSE.  QUALCOMM IS SEEN AS A "KNOWN BAD PLAYER" in the EU.  

This puts Qualcomm off all their planned pathways ....  and they are now out in the cold like Intel is now.
Both sets of stock values are declining accordingly .....

Who isn't all messed up firing various lawsuits at each other all over the place at the moment?   Google, AMD and Samsung.   Those 3 are also paired up with Global Foundry and IBM in a research deal to go down to 5nm next year and they have a developed process, a product production line and are at the tape out stage right now.  


   this is a current 10nm SOC



  5nm is real and it is coming soon enough.  

This new tech is 5nm Gate all Around and the 5nm production process looks to be greatly simplified compared to the current 10nm and 7nm FinFET processes.   Number of masks and lithography stages will be cut in half, easily.   Look to see a 7nm version of it to be announced by Global Foundry and AMD very very soon as simplified equals cheaper to produce.    

These SOC packages will stay the same size as the ball grid array really can't get any smaller.   Ball solder connection grid is what is calling the die size now instead of the actual SOC size as that is getting truly tiny going forward.   Also be aware that you can put a LOT more cores and other functions into the SOC itself because you got LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of free room on the die package.   Voltage requirements will go down as well, the 1 volt SOC is becoming real very soon.

Apple already has their fully paid for 7nm FinFET lines cranking out Apple SOCs at TSMC right now so Apple is right on track for executing their current game plan.  Rumor has it that Apple is also backing the IBM 5nm research deal as well.   Global Foundries / AMD also goes into 7nm and 5nm production next year as well so you can say Intel has truly missed the second set of boats right now, too.  

If Apple is there,  then TSMC gets the new gate around 7nm/5nm tech too, sooner rather than later.   TSMC will be building the first Apple base-band and modem equipped Apple SOC starting next year at 5nm.   See Qualcomm and Intel kicked to the curb by Apple in 2018 accordingly.

So, Intel is out in the COLD again big time (2-3 full generations back now and on the wrong side of the voltage gap as well) and Intel is now acting completely selfishly to hang up MS legally to try to force MS to stick with them going out into the future.  

Misery loves company.  

MS won't put up with this sort of action for very long (they can't).   Look to see MS do another massive x86 personnel layoff and then move completely over to coding native ARM and Tensor code soon, very soon as MS is not going down the toilet bowl swirl with Intel.

AMD and Google and Nvidia are all working on Tensor type AI applications that can increase throughput a 1,000 times, supposedly.   This has got to be a big big concern for both Intel and for MS since the old Wintel alliance has no answer for it at all right now.  

Hard fact it, you either make this move to over to programming for ARM and Tensor type AI or you go down the big toilet bowl swirl with the obsolete Intel x86 high voltage stuff .......      

Look to see a new sort of OS come out from somebody, really soon,  one that does Tensor type AI by leveraging off the GPU side of things in paired combination with the old style CPU stuff (AMD has a half dozen Ryzen CPU/GPUs now that kinda sorta does that trick already).    Supercomputer Linux is what works for the experimenters right now and Supercomputer Linux is available, right now.  For free no less.   MS loves Linux, right ????

This big big big game of musical chairs continues, with Intel failing to find a seat fairly consistently of late .....

     
Because vendors are squaring off to build it now, ARM Holdings begins to actually talk about A75 and A55 big little in some detail and explain how it works with the new DynamIQ internal structure.

https://community.arm.com/processors/b/blog/posts/cortex-a75-ground-breaking-per
formance-for-intelligent-solutions

Fair warning, your old Intel/MS knowledge does not really play here and many of the claims seem fanstastical on first looks -- just remember that ARM is in the habit of saying nothing about tech that isn't in actual production.   Huawei, Mediatek and Qualcomm and 10 others have bought the new tech now and they are all doing production processing try out work as we speak, so ARM feels like it is now free to discuss what the basic technology can do.



Yes, some of the first fruits may wind up as a 50x increase in throughput coming from the new Machine Learned AI stuff -- and that is being done on a tiny phone sized SOC.    

One of the circles on the Venn bubble chart relates to Android OS improvements, the other relates to CPU/GPU hardware improvements and the last circle might refer to your apps needing to be rewritten to support the new forms of processing ..... we are looking to see this turn up all explained as talking points fairly soon, with a lot of the improvement being likely driven by the Mali Graphics side of the SOC since part of that GPU is "tensor capable".  

AMD is doing the same thing with their Vulcan Graphics and Intel is licensing that tech by cross licensing the entire AMD Vulcan Graphics package from AMD.   Watch the core counts from AMD and Intel skyrocket, and note that the same thing is going to happen to your stock ARM cell phone SOC designs.  

Of course not all of your your computing items apply to Machine Learned AI, so what will you get in "old school throughput increases"?     Answer is 1.5x to 2x better throughput  ......



Also note that Qualcomm is using the entire ARM Holdings A75/A55/Mali A72 graphics package next year AS IS -- there is a reason for that, which may be that to get the overall speed and throughput increases you have to use the entire DynamIQ package, not just little bits and pieces of it.

We note in passing that the new larger Mali graphics GPU is 1.4x more powerful (and larger and more complex) than it used to be.   And we see that the big/little core counts in the CPU side can go up much higher than before as well.   Smaller cores due to die shrink, but more of them used to gain more total throughput.

And all of this increase AND MORE can fit on the fingertip sized ball grid array at 7nm or 5nm using the new simplified gate all around production processes.

  ..... yo dude, that sort of throughput increase puts phone SOCs up into the old Core i7 range of power, you know that, right ???


So do you think you mebbe might be up for buying you a new phone/PC in the next few years?

2 weeks ago, Apple hired away the entire top rank of Qualcomm's base-band, modem and cell radio group, that was the Qualcomm head radio dude and all his lieutenants.   The people snatching began with those moves .....  now it is Google's turn.

Google just hired away Apple's head of SOC design, the guy who led the whole A-series of Apple iPhone chips.    Why did Google do this ???   Google does build their own data farm Tensor Processors and Google may intend to expand their efforts further into a more generic type of Tensor based processor -- a phone to PC to data farm sort of product line.

So, look to see some new and different fusions between Tensor and Graphics and CPU showing up in the ARM world as Google eventually open sources much of what they do, eventually.

Right now Qualcomm isn't even trying to tweek their own custom DynamIQ ARM tech for next year's wave of chips, as it all has to work together to work at all.     "Missing people" may also be a part of this decision to use the bone Stock ARM designs on this go round.

Apple wants a GOOD radio and a GOOD graphics core (items they both own and control) inside their planned 5nm Apple SOC and they are paying out primo money to see that happen, promptly, ASAP so perhaps it might be ready for shipment by late next year.

Google wants to promote and expand the Tensor capable processor wave they have started already ......   and Google feels if they don't do it, somebody else will.

Solution being used by both companies -- need some new skills?   So hire away the most successful teams from other companies that initially brought on those skills ......

BTW, Apple has irrevocably fired Qualcomm as a vendor .... completely.    All bridges are burned now.   Tossing around 10 billion dollar lawsuits and head hunting away a half dozen key employees tends to end business relationships fairly decisively.

Everyone is currently pillaging Qualcomm's best people at the moment -- and they are willing to go now, too.

Micron and Intel partnered together to push Intel's Optane version of Micron's new memory type, with Optane smelling pretty much like a failure at doing this trick due to a very high cost and impractically low observed benefits to the end user --- it flopped in the real world, in other words.  

Well, Micron announces they got them some new "late breaking close out activity" type activity items happening right now.  

Remember, Optane is on the left as shown in the graphic at the very bottom of the page.

https://liliputing.com/2017/06/micron-kills-off-lexar-flash-drives-storage-cards
-products.html



Micron has some strong competitors in the memory world and Sandisk is one of the strongest of that set.   Samsung is another.  Micron/Lexar has a whole lot of old style inventory stock sitting on vendor's shelves that has go to go, real soon.   It was built on 28nm tech from 3 years ago, and it simply isn't worth a shite right now nor for next year either.  

New Style 7nm memory is currently being produced for Apple and Samsung and this new stuff is coming out at 7nm (running a hybrid gate all around) that is going to be 5x faster and twice as cheap as the very best of the current stuff, and it will soon be the newer "fully systems compatible" memory style for both Android and Chromebooks (and pc too).  

A new style of plug in micro card will be able to hold multi-gigs of systems fast random access long duration permanent memory that can actually add in to your mobile products "main memory" access space.

Remember, these old Lexar memory types on sell off can only be used on Android to save your pictures and music -- and they can only act as a data memory stick (for data only) in the Windows world.    This simply isn't good enough any more.

Look to see the newest main memory types being pushed hard by the other makers using their less costly versions of the new 7nm hybrid gate all around memory production tech.   Look to see everybody dumping their inventory stocks of old stick technologies and products that were produced at 4 year old antique lithography levels, making a big big big closeout sale event out of the changeover.



The oldest of the old school products on the shelves right now simply cannot compete against what is coming out on the right -- it kills them by 10x increased speed and by 100X more memory at the same price points without even trying hard.   Plus, the new format cards showing up in your new memory products can act as an "add-in increase" in main systems memory and it can be completely used in all sorts of manners.

Look to see a new USB C standard come out and a new sim card standard come out, standards that are supported by a new Chrome OS and Android .....  standards that are in line with the new DynamIQ transfer standards from ARM Holdings and the automotive world.



.... wait for it, wait for it ....