Qualcomm promises laptop chip capable of burying MacBook M1

Qualcomm’s new CEO Cristiano Amon told laptop makers that by next year the company should have a PC processor capable of competing with the M1 chip that Apple uses for its lineup. of MacBook.

At the end of 2020, Apple announced its biggest PC novelty in years: the M1 chip, whose first benchmarks were something to dream of. Based on ARM architecture, M1 chipset delivers speeds and energy efficiency that no other company can compete with yet, including the heavyweights Intel and Qualcomm.

But Cristiano Amon is convinced that Qualcomm can design a processor capable of equaling or even surpassing the M1. To do this, the company has already engaged a team of former Apple engineers through the acquisition of a company called Nuvia. These engineers worked on the development of Apple’s M1 chip before setting out to create Nuvia.

Qualcomm goes all out to compete with Apple

These new Qualcomm-signed processors should be released next year. If however during thehe development phase they weren’t up to the task, plan B would be to look for ARM processors. To cSubject, Mr Amon said, “If ARM, with whom we have had a relationship for years, ends up developing a processor that is better than what we can build on our own, then we still have the option of obtaining a license from ARM. ”

Cristiano Amon, who joined Qualcomm as an engineer in 1995, replaced Steve Mollenkopf last month, now retired. After officially taking his Qualcomm CEO duties, he said he was counting on the company’s revenue growth in the Chinese market to fuel its core smartphone chip business despite political tensions. He also mentioned that the US sanctions against Huawei Technologies Co Ltd gives to Qualcomm the opportunity to generate much more income.

In the last fiscal year, of the $ 16.5 billion in revenue generated by Qualcomm’s chips, $ 12.8 billion came from mobile phones. The company’s mobile processor and modem technology powers the vast majority of high-end Android smartphones. The company recently unveiled its Snapdragon 888+ which will arrive on Asus, Motorola and other smartphones later in 2021.