Discussion Qualcomm Snapdragon Thread

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FlameTail

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2021
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View attachment 107291
Clock speedsGeekbench6
Multi Core
X1P-46-1008 Phoenix cores @ 3.4 GHz

(4.0 GHz Single Core Boost)
12,000
8 Gen 42 Phoenix-L cores @ 4.3 GHz

6 Phoenix-M cores @ 3.5 GHz
10,000

X1P-46-100 was run in Windows. If it was Linux, the score would be ~10% higher, so about 13,000 multi-core.

That means X1P-46-100 is 30% faster in multi-core than 8 Gen 4.

Both are 8 core CPUs.

If the 8G4 scores less, despite it's Phoenix-M cores being clocked even higher than the Phoenix cores in the X Plus,

It must mean that the Phoenix-M cores have less IPC than Phoenix/Phoenix-L cores.

Phoenix-M is a different uarch.
I was right.
 

digitaldreamer

Junior Member
Mar 23, 2007
22
14
81
So ARM is scrambling, flexing their legal muscles to potentially kill Oryon but also to discourage others from trying to follow Qualcomm's lead.
Lots of vendors have already been down this road before and they failed miserably in creating a competitive Arm-based SoC using just the architectural license. Qualcomm's lead isn't going to change anyone's mind and magically make it possible again. The type of engineering resources required to make a competitive SoC in today's market are astronomical.

The new cores from Arm are a massive improvement, however, and most will continue using them. It's a far simpler business model.
 
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Raqia

Member
Nov 19, 2008
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32
91
What if its not ARM that wants to take down Qualcomm, but... Apple?

Remember, Apple is part owner of ARM, and has incredible influence over ARM.
I think the non-constructive tone of ARM's negotiating tactics either speak to its desperation / lack of pricing power or to outside influences, one of which could very well be Apple: it has pursued legal action against Nuvia from its very inception after GW III's departure.

Another possibility is that ARM board member Paul Jacobs is still bitter about his ouster from Qualcomm's board of directors (he was also former Qualcomm CEO and son of the founder) during Broadcom's attempted acquisition of Qualcomm when it was reeling from Apple's coordinated, international attack against it. C-suite rumor has it that he simply lost it during this episode, and being kicked out might still be stinging to this day.

I don't think ARM's case is very strong though: ARM's IP reach doesn't extend past the decoders of a CPU and the rest of the implementation is entirely Nuvia's efforts. Jim Keller had once said that AMD's cancelled K12 ARM CPU based on the Zen u-arch wouldn't involve much beyond replacing the CPU decoders (although the similar memory ordering, registers / flags, and calling convention between x86 and ARM certainly helps in creating common u-arch implementations.)
 
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FlameTail

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2021
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No love for Snapdragon Automotive SoCs?

Snapdragon Summit 2024 : Day 2 Keynote


Snapdragon Ride Elite and Snapdragon Cockpit Elite are unveiled at 25:00

These SoCs look very big and very powerful. Far more powerful than the X Elite even. I wish I could see a teardown.

Also isn't it remarkable how Qualcomm is using one unified brand (Snapdragon) for all their SoCs in various segments (wearables, mobile, AR/VR, PC, Automotive etc...). They are shoring up the power of the Snapdragon X brand.
 

Nothingness

Diamond Member
Jul 3, 2013
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I don't think ARM's case is very strong though: ARM's IP reach doesn't extend past the decoders of a CPU and the rest of the implementation is entirely Nuvia's efforts. Jim Keller had once said that AMD's cancelled K12 ARM CPU based on the Zen u-arch wouldn't involve much beyond replacing the CPU decoders (although the similar memory ordering, registers / flags, and calling convention between x86 and ARM certainly helps in creating common u-arch implementations.)
Arm memory ordering model is different from x86. That's why Apple added an extension to help Rosetta2. Yeah Arm is different from x86 beyond decoders 😉
 

ikjadoon

Senior member
Sep 4, 2006
235
513
146
Arm's latest threat vs Qualcomm brings up some eerie Intel memories from way back when:


Standard time to halt licensing an ISA to a competitor: 60 days
n = 2

To be honest, ARM is also acting in bad faith.

It seems to me that they won't just be satisfied with extracting more $$$ from Qualcomm. Instead, they have a vested interest in destroying the Oryon CPU project.

Re: vested interest to destroy Oryon:

To be fair, Arm did grant NUVIA an ALA for Phoenix, even when Phoenix was a plain Neoverse competitor. Arm did the same for Ampere, Fujitsu, etc. Arm Ltd. gains financially and technically with ALAs.

2018: Arm launches Neoverse (with its own good, but not top, uArches) TLAs
2019: Arm grants NUVIA (a team that consistently out-designed Arm's 1T perf) a datacenter ALA

I don't think Arm have a vested interest to destroy Oryon, even if Arm competes with it. The ideal win-win is to re-negotiate NUVIA's & Qualcomm's ALAs, which QC & Arm were allegedly trying before the lawsuit. Now, perhaps those were not reasonable negotiations: we'd need to read the ALAs & the negotiation discussion notes—what the Judge will likely do much better than we can, but I still want to read it myself, haha.

I'm not yet worried about Oryon dying; no doubt it'd be a great loss, especially one as performant & efficient as Oryon, for its IP to be destroyed with no derivatives. Why?

IANAL, but the key is that ALAs are private contracts; so even after Judgment (and now more likely after Judgment IMO), both Arm & Qualcomm can write up a new contract even after party 1 wins and party 2 loses. The Judge (and Jury) is only interpreting the contract - parties can agree to throw that contract away later.

So a post-Judgment (or even post-Appeals) settlement is very much possible. Judgements can be unconditional surrender, whereas settlements—even post-Judgment—let everyone claw back a bit more.

Re: Arm in bad faith

IANAL, under any means.

I'm unsure if it is bad faith or Arm is following the ALA contract (which is still redacted / private). Licenses (as Qualcomm intimately knows) can have termination clauses with certain conditions. Arm & Qualcomm are less like Intel & AMD above, which had lots of cross-licensing. Here, only Arm is the licensor and Qualcomm is only a licensee: Arm does have the right to cancel Qualcomm's ALA—with certain conditions fulfilled.

Importantly, one legal argument that Qualcomm used is that Arm's refusal to act against Qualcomm & Arm's continued cooperation with Qualcomm is an admission Qualcomm is following the contract:

With ARM’s Knowledge And Assistance Owed To Qualcomm Under Its ALA, Qualcomm Continued Its Work Developing CPU Cores After The Acquisition Closed
211. ... During the verification process, ARM knew that it was interacting with former NUVIA employees, and knew that Qualcomm was seeking to verify core designs that included technologies Qualcomm had acquired from NUVIA.
216. In or around late 2021, Qualcomm also introduced the Compute SoC into the parties’ weekly discussions. Like the parties’ discussions concerning the in-development Phoenix Core for the Server SoC, these discussions were transparent, and ARM was aware that these discussions included Qualcomm engineers formerly at NUVIA and related to Qualcomm’s ongoing development of the technologies it had acquired from NUVIA.

So Arm—sending a notice—that it's cancelling Qualcomm's ALA (beyond the clear juxtaposition post-QC Summit / near trial) is also Arm perhaps trying to defuse that Qualcomm argument: "Qualcomm can't claim we're working with Qualcomm and Arm doesn't have a problem with the licenses. We definitely are not working with Qualcomm and Arm definitely has a problem with the licenses."

EDIT: clarity, spaces
 
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Hesperax

Member
Nov 13, 2023
31
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Undead mentioned expected Pegasus Performance (20%+ with SME) and with the use of N3P/SF2.

Google Translate:
After so many years, Qualcomm finally brought Apple's technology to Android. This was once ridiculed and questioned, but the actual result was that the second-generation Oryon, which took three years to polish, accomplished the feat and the improvement was obvious. However, building from scratch requires trial and error, and the first generation had many problems. The second generation was a perfect answer in three years. But it is still ridiculed, which is really puzzling.
ARM is a company that focuses on IP development, with a large team. It loses to a small workshop in the same development cycle. If more people were given to Nuvia, it would have entered the iteration last year, and XE would not have been launched so late. Everything is difficult at the beginning. The next generation of SM8850 will also have a more eye-catching improvement, but the frequency will be higher. The mixed use of SF2 and N3P is worrying. There may be a relatively low-frequency and low-priced sub-flagship, and a high-specification, high-frequency and high-performance real flagship, and the price is also expensive.
The performance of Oryon on spec2017 can be tested on several more models, and they should be roughly the same. The large lead of GB6 is still due to the high-specification and large-scale CPU cluster. Looking only at the single-core spec, the lead is not large, but looking at the scale of the single core, next year will be a watershed. What can be revealed now is that both ST and MT have improved by more than 20%. With the introduction of SME and frequency increase, we can continue to appreciate the stack core strategy.
If I have to comment on the second generation Oryon Phoenix L and Phoenix M, it is probably reasonable but below expectations. It is rare for a small workshop to achieve this level. I should have said it exceeded expectations. But I can only give a reasonable evaluation. The CPU is too difficult, I can understand.
The original expectation was that the second generation single core performance would catch up with a17pro and energy efficiency would catch up with a16. At present, both are lower than my expectation. The next generation will face challenges in energy efficiency because there is no process node update. However, N3p does not need to worry too much about overclocking capability. It depends on whether the spec can be improved and continue to exceed expectations.

I assume that the target will be to break 4000 SC GB 6.3 with SME.
 

FlameTail

Diamond Member
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To be honest, I did not expected that this forum has so much for offering to newbies like me,I am loving every second I am spending here.Truly a gem community.
Appreciate it while it lasts. We fear the forum will shut down someday, and it could be soon.
 

Raqia

Member
Nov 19, 2008
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Arm memory ordering model is different from x86. That's why Apple added an extension to help Rosetta2. Yeah Arm is different from x86 beyond decoders 😉
If your implementation does both the weaker data dependency ordering of ARM and the TSO of x86, it more or less does come down to decoders when it comes to getting correct implementations of either ISA. Those concepts themselves aren't unique to ARM's IP; I guess I meant to say that implementations can be made compatible here without the hassle of totally redesigning caches for instance.

Another angle on the ARM acrimony with Qualcomm: Q had been lobbying against nVidia's ultimately scuttled acquisition of ARM and their owners are quite upset that they're not getting their payday and also being threatened by superior implementations in the field. (Amon has said in the past Oryon would be licensable, and some rumors indicate Google's Tensor G5 would have 5ghz CPUs...) This lawsuit is their way of addressing both threats in the short term to get a short term payday.

Qualcomm already uses RISC-V in a big way for their non-user facing micro-controllers:


Their best counter would be to lead the charge to bigger RISC-V cores which would really hurt ARM in the long term.
 
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Meteor Late

Member
Dec 15, 2023
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I find the M core a bit disappointing, in terms of efficiency. Seems like P cores are much better for efficiency, I understand the main reason is for area savings but still. Even at the lower part of the curve, like at 1W, the P core is still more efficient than the M core.
 
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FlameTail

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2021
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I find the M core a bit disappointing, in terms of efficiency. Seems like P cores are much better for efficiency, I understand the main reason is for area savings but still.
I think Oryon-M is fine.

It's in the same ballpark as A18-E and D9400-A720. Qualcomm is just letting it ramp to high clock-speeds/power-levels to extract more performance.

Even at the lower part of the curve, like at 1W, the P core is still more efficient than the M core.
That's true for D9400 and A18 Pro too.

Also Geekerwan is measuring power efficiency. There is another important metric : energy efficiency.
 

Doug S

Platinum Member
Feb 8, 2020
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What if its not ARM that wants to take down Qualcomm, but... Apple?

Remember, Apple is part owner of ARM, and has incredible influence over ARM.

Apple was one of ARM's founders and a 1/3 owner at first, but they sold off those shares long ago. They went in on ARM's IPO along with other companies like Nvidia, but at a mostly symbolic amount in the $25 to $100 million range (in an IPO that valued ARM at over $50 billion) A shareholder that holds between 0.05% and 0.2% of your shares is not exercising any management control, especially in a matter as important as "do we sue one of our biggest customers". Apple may have influence over them in technical decisions like the future of the ISA, but they don't have any influence financially or legally.

This is all SoftBank's call, as they still own 90% of ARM. Given that its market cap has gone from ~$50 billion at IPO to $160 billion at the moment it needs to grab a LOT of money from somewhere to justify that ridiculous valuation. I mean, the valuation was ridiculuos at IPO, but now it is in the category of bizarre IMHO (P/E of 346)

The stock is down 7% today as of this writing so apparently the market is not a fan of their ultimatum to Qualcomm.
 

Raqia

Member
Nov 19, 2008
63
32
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Apple was one of ARM's founders and a 1/3 owner at first, but they sold off those shares long ago. They went in on ARM's IPO along with other companies like Nvidia, but at a mostly symbolic amount in the $25 to $100 million range (in an IPO that valued ARM at over $50 billion) A shareholder that holds between 0.05% and 0.2% of your shares is not exercising any management control, especially in a matter as important as "do we sue one of our biggest customers". Apple may have influence over them in technical decisions like the future of the ISA, but they don't have any influence financially or legally.

This is all SoftBank's call, as they still own 90% of ARM. Given that its market cap has gone from ~$50 billion at IPO to $160 billion at the moment it needs to grab a LOT of money from somewhere to justify that ridiculous valuation. I mean, the valuation was ridiculuos at IPO, but now it is in the category of bizarre IMHO (P/E of 346)

The stock is down 7% today as of this writing so apparently the market is not a fan of their ultimatum to Qualcomm.
That Apple has no financial or legal clout in the industry (even with rivals much less companies it has small stakes in) is laughable. During their attempted knifing of Qualcomm, they were able to force phone manufacturers to withhold contractually guaranteed licensing fees (the complaints by the OEMs used language nearly identical to Apple's complaint.) They were able to sway Samsung to their side:


At the conference in Idaho, according to documents Qualcomm filed earlier this year, Apple saw an opportunity to put itself in front of investigators. Qualcomm claims that at the event—almost certainly the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, which both Cook and Lee attended—the Apple executive urged Samsung to pressure South Korean antitrust regulators to intensify an investigation into Qualcomm that had been open since 2014. “Get aggressive,” the Apple executive said, according to Qualcomm’s filing, adding that this would be the “best chance” to get Qualcomm to lower its prices.

Apple's lobbying to multiple international regulatory agencies initiated multiple complaints around the same time. They are vastly more powerful than some countries and ruthless corporate citizens as well...
 
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Nothingness

Diamond Member
Jul 3, 2013
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If your implementation does both the weaker data dependency ordering of ARM and the TSO of x86, it more or less does come down to decoders when it comes to getting correct implementations of either ISA. Those concepts themselves aren't unique to ARM's IP; I guess I meant to say that implementations can be made compatible here without the hassle of totally redesigning caches for instance.
Got it and it makes sense. I wonder how much one would leave on the table by having TSO always on; perhaps there's some way to test the on Apple or Qualcomm machines?
 

Tup3x

Golden Member
Dec 31, 2016
1,117
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Maybe Intel should give Qualcomm a call: "Yo, want x86 license?"

Not going to happen though... But if they did, that would be very interesting turnaround.
 

MS_AT

Senior member
Jul 15, 2024
365
798
96
Maybe Intel should give Qualcomm a call: "Yo, want x86 license?"

Not going to happen though... But if they did, that would be very interesting turnaround.
Aren't cross licensing agreements between Intel and AMD valid as long as one or the other won't be bought by 3rd party? I wonder what the consequences would be in such case.
 

Raqia

Member
Nov 19, 2008
63
32
91
Looks like this is the current state of the cross-licensing deal:


Under the terms of the agreement between the x86 chip developers, if the two companies merge with other companies on certain terms, enter into certain kind of joint-venture agreements that effectively change their ownership or get acquired, the cross-licensing agreement is terminated. On Wednesday, it was reported that the agreement is terminated only for the party that changes its control. However, according to Drew Prairie, director of corporate communications at AMD, once ownership of either AMD or Intel changes, the whole agreement is terminated for both parties. As a result, after a transaction happens, the companies need to negotiate a new cross-licensing agreement.

“Actually, the agreement is pretty clear – if there is a change of control for either company the agreement is terminated,” said Mr. Prairie. “That does not mean a new agreement could not be reached, but in a change of control the agreement is terminated.”
 

poke01

Platinum Member
Mar 8, 2022
2,583
3,409
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Yeah Qualcomm isn’t getting an x86 license unless something very very crazy happens
 

jdubs03

Golden Member
Oct 1, 2013
1,079
746
136
I’m going to be optimistic and say they’ll hash it out and Oryon v3 will make it to market next year with ARMv9.3+.
 
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