The game of power consumption and performance and the counterattack and attack against PC

This week is destined to be an extraordinary week. The story of Intel and qualcomm has become a focus of media attention. On Monday, Intel launched a 2GHz smartphone with MOTOROLA. On Tuesday, the weak qualcomm issued the S4 Plus MSM8X30 tasting, with the brilliant results, excellent products and mobile phone chips. On Wednesday, Intel worked with partners to discuss mobile Internet development... Meanwhile, Intel CEO otellini's early retirement, qualcomm's stock market value briefly surpassed Intel, a surge of "core" battle in the open.

Qualcomm: a backhand attack

At a press conference on November 20th, qualcomm was hard to hide its pride. Qualcomm global vice President began the speech with "five first". In terms of application processor sales, GPU share, DSP share, 3G/4G/LTE baseband chip, and radio frequency chip, qualcomm is among the best. Qualcomm business development vice President of global Shen Jin also to the IT times reporters that high market value of more than Intel, reflects the trend of the development of the industry, "global smartphone sales in the first half of 2012, more than 2012, the growth rate of 45%, the sales performance is 67% higher than the same period of the PC."

Maybe two years ago, Intel and qualcomm were big brothers and big brothers. Despite its growth in different chip fields, qualcomm's market capitalisation is half the size of Intel's. But with the Snapdragon chip moving into more smartphones and tablets, qualcomm has become a leader in mobile chips.

The so-called "time" hero. The high-speed development of smartphones and tablets has also created a platform for qualcomm. Compared to the PC market each year 400 million sets of data delivery, smartphone shipments a year in 2011 has been more than a PC, this year will reach 700 million units, and tablet PC shipments will reach 100 million units. As the mobile chip boss, qualcomm has benefited hugely from the market.

Intel: the hesitation of the pioneers

For Intel, it faces a tough choice. Although Intel market share of over eighty percent, in the field of PC chip is difficult to shake, but it is very poor, mobile shipments in the first half of this year global smartphone chip market share of only 0.2%.

"Intel has always been hesitant about mobile chips. This has something to do with CEO otellini's strategic missteps." ISuppli, chief analyst at wen-jun gu told The Times of IT, as early as six years ago, Intel for $600 million to sell its communications with the application processor unit to Marvell technology companies in the United States, developing and sales of the department is mainly used for smart phones, PDA and other handheld devices processor chip, "Intel seems to be a thought for the PC industry, ignores the development of the mobile chips, Paul otellini, for the sensitivity of the mobile market is not enough, to drag down the speed of Intel's transformation."

Still, Intel's technological edge remains clear. IC components distributor branch company's executive vice President of electrical business TongXin city Zhu Jizhi says, so far, including qualcomm, based on the ARM processor on the configuration of low handsets running very slip, but with the mobile phone from dual-core upgrade to 4, 8 nuclei, even 16 nuclear, ARM is a bit difficult, "such as multitasking, 3 d graphics, etc., struggle for many years in the field of PC Intel X86 still dominate."

The next game

Power consumption: seeking the best balance

For now, it's still a matter of power consumption that bothers Intel's X86 architecture processors. According to industry analyst shang ji gang, the X86 architecture has a higher power consumption and higher heating in low-load use, resulting in an obvious shortboard in the endurance capacity of X86 chips. The arm-based qualcomm processor, which USES little energy in idle and low-load conditions, is also cheaper than Intel's processors.

But qualcomm's ARM architecture weakness is also evident. Intel's CISC architecture is relatively complex for the design of chips, a kernel on X86 that USES more transistors than the same kernel on an ARM, and has more power and performance. The same kernel of ARM can't compete with Intel in terms of performance. In addition, after more than 10 years of struggle in the market, the corresponding hardware support has been gradually improved. ARM server system manufacturers have to design their own motherboard, which increases production costs. ARM's software system is also weak, and the software is hard to find and expensive.

Raj Talluri, senior vice President of qualcomm mobile computing products management, believes that future mobile chip challenges will revolve around low power consumption and high efficiency, and Intel and ARM are learning about each other's strengths. Intel plans to redesign the next generation of its Atom processors, with lower energy and higher performance. ARM, too, is learning about Intel's technical capabilities. How to realize the powerful functions of PC on mobile phones and tablets is the common goal of both sides.

Business model: closed VS open

Intel's closed development model was once a magic weapon for its success. He told the IT times that qualcomm needs semiconductor manufacturers such as TSMC to work on chips because there are no chipmaking plants on the process. While Intel from chip development and design to manufacturing, is complete, has a good control on the chain, also on the product quality and production process can reasonable arrangement, not too would like qualcomm and mediatek appear out of stock.

But with the development of the mobile market, with the challenges of new generation such as ARM, Intel appears to be keeping pace. Wen-jun gu said that closed the business model of response to market is relatively slow, "ARM, for example, it does not produce its own processors, but provide a framework design, let partners to manufacture according to the demand. In the mobile Internet market, this business model is flexible. More importantly, ARM's business model has also spawned a host of partnerships, including chip makers, software companies, design assistant developers, hardware makers and mobile device makers. They form a huge corporate alliance around ARM."

Wen-jun gu believes that Intel has the advantage of strong manufacturing technology, plenty of cash flow, etc., should be free from the super, mobile Internet rapid transformation, improve the ecological system, rely on to "alliance" and the rivals PK, play to their technique, such as cash, talent advantage transformation.