How Qualcomm built a mobile empire (and will it last?)

In the event you may pop on some X-ray specs and peek inside your smartphone, there’s a very good likelihood you’d see a Qualcomm Snapdragon brand adorning its CPU — no less than if you happen to’re sporting a flagship handset. With Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and plenty of different main international manufacturers backing Snapdragon as their premium platform of selection, Qualcomm sits in a fairly dominant place within the cell chip market, though its rivals may choose up quantity on mid-range merchandise with tighter margins.

Return in time a bit, nonetheless, and also you may need purchased a Samsung Galaxy with Exynos within the US or may have been mulling the advantages of HUAWEI’s Kirin in Europe. Earlier than that, your telephone most likely had a chip constructed by the formidable Texas Devices and even Intel. So, simply how did Qualcomm’s Snapdragon find yourself being nearly synonymous with Android smartphones?

Very early smartphone processors had been usually constructed by firms with current specializations in radio baseband applied sciences, leveraging the now-familiar Arm CPU structure to deal with the applying processor aspect of issues. Intel’s XScale and Texas Devices OMAP had been discovered within the BlackBerry 8700 and Nokia N95, for instance. Samsung was additionally already a legacy chip participant right now; its S5L8900 powered the unique Apple iPhone in 2007, however it additionally used Broadcom chips for a few of its early Galaxy fashions.

Qualcomm, additionally with a powerful historical past in baseband, made its manner into the applying processor market round that point; its fancily named MSM7201A powered the primary Android telephone in 2008 — the HTC Dream — which was rapidly adopted up by the Snapdragon S1 and its self-developed Scorpion CPU (based mostly on Arm) that very same yr.

Why do basebands and modems matter a lot? Effectively, they’re what ensures know-how can hook up with a community — a fairly large deal for telephones. Qualcomm was a key participant within the improvement of the flip of the millennium 3G CDMA normal, which Dash and Verizon adopted within the US, whereas AT&T and T-Cellular went the GSM WCDMA route like a lot of the remainder of the world. With Qualcomm supplying baseband know-how, Verizon ended up with a strong 3G community, and Qualcomm had a route into handsets promoting on the US’ greatest community on the time. The iPhone 4, as an illustration, got here in a CDMA model with a Qualcomm modem for Verizon, whilst Apple launched into its silicon adventures with the Apple A4. Qualcomm additionally has an in depth CDMA and WCDMA patent portfolio, which not solely gave it a leg up in creating modems but additionally earned it a tidy sum in licensing agreements within the early 3G period.

After all, software efficiency was additionally a priority in these early smartphone days, and new multitasking capabilities demanded quicker, multi-core processors. Whereas NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 pipped everybody to the put up, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S3, Samsung’s Exynos 4210, and Texas Devices OMAP 4 all grabbed Arm’s Cortex-A9 CPU for dual-core setups in 2010, and the efficiency race ramped up from there.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Professional and follow-up 800 sequence showcased the facility of its customized Krait CPU cores in comparison with Exynos’ quad-core Arm cores, in addition to the model’s built-in 4G LTE capabilities. This led Samsung to undertake its rival’s chips within the US with growing consistency from the Galaxy S2, S3, and S4. That’s proper — the Exynos vs Snapdragon international rivalry dates that far again.

Nonetheless, Qualcomm was blindsided by Apple’s fast swap to a 64-bit CPU, so 2014’s overly sizzling Snapdragon 810 and its slower however cooler 808 sibling switched again to Arm Cortex CPU designs. The CPU efficiency pendulum swung backwards and forwards within the octa-core period, as did graphics and manufacturing effectivity wins. MediaTek rose to prominence within the funds sector throughout this era, offering a slew of inexpensive octa-core processors for funds fashions. It additionally supplied its built-in modems however couldn’t compete with Qualcomm and Samsung when it comes to top-tier efficiency.

Because the market turned more and more aggressive by the mid-2010s, Intel, Broadcom, TI, and even NVIDIA dropped by the wayside — primarily owing to a scarcity of built-in baseband — whereas the survivors leveraged distinctive strengths to remain within the sport. The success of Apple’s iPhone meant it may afford to develop its customized silicon regardless of not having modems to name its personal. Galaxy supplied comparable alternatives for Samsung, which was additionally capable of leverage its manufacturing capabilities to remain cost-efficient. Qualcomm got here out on prime as the selection for different premium Android manufacturers, corresponding to HTC, LG, and Sony, owing to its highly effective built-in modem know-how and aggressive efficiency.

With 4G firmly underneath its belt, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon sequence moved rapidly to accommodate premium, mid, and inexpensive tiers with 8, 7, 6, and 4 sequence monikers, although it was by no means fairly as aggressive as rival MediaTek within the extra inexpensive tiers. Nonetheless, media consideration would comply with the duel between Apple and Samsung for the efficiency crown, with the previous step by step pulling away because of its customized CPU improvement efforts. Sarcastically, Exynos additionally went down the customized CPU route with Mongoose, however this usually left Snapdragon better off.

Topping Android benchmarks earned Snapdragon loads of applause within the mid-2010s, however software and networking efficiency began to grow to be very snug by early 2020 and was much less of a cause to improve your telephone. It was round that point that Qualcomm began to make main enhancements to its chip’s different elements: Adreno GPU, Hexagon DSP, and its Qualcomm Spectra ISP. Graphics, computational imaging, and AI all turned more and more necessary components of the Snapdragon id, which explains why we’ve seen Snapdragon in all the pieces from gaming telephones to images powerhouses.

Nonetheless, modem know-how remained a key differentiator for Qualcomm all through the 4G LTE and more moderen 5G eras as nicely. Regardless of the odd lawsuit, it has been a key companion for Apple, Samsung, and plenty of others in bringing cutting-edge networking to their gadgets.

After all, it’s not been completely clean crusing. Qualcomm’s rebrand to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 was accompanied by overheating points that needed to be rectified by switching from Samsung Foundries to TSMC with the 8 Plus Gen 1. TSMC doesn’t come low-cost, however Qualcomm’s willingness to modify producers has usually helped it swerve effectivity points which have hampered rivals Exynos and Tensor constructed at Samsung in current generations.

At the moment, Qualcomm has returned to its customized CPU roots with the Snapdragon 8 Elite, providing cell efficiency that’s solely rivaled by Apple’s Professional iPhones. Whereas the model had a minor however constant efficiency lead in earlier years, it’s wanting to make use of its newfound lead as a significant differentiator in 2025. Mixed with the superior AI, imaging, and networking capabilities that it’s additionally been honing for the previous decade, the Qualcomm juggernaut is wanting fairly laborious to cease — no less than within the premium tier.

After all, efficiency isn’t all the pieces, particularly in the case of larger and better costs. As such, MediaTek continues to current itself as a viable, barely extra inexpensive different within the high-end and stays the funds go-to. Equally, Google and Samsung have customized chipset developments in Tensor and Exynos, respectively, offering them a approach to pursue their very own design targets and hedge in opposition to monopolistic pricing methods. Qualcomm definitely doesn’t personal the cell chipset market, however it leads the best way within the high-performance tier.

All that speak of customized CPU cores leads us to a key a part of Qualcomm’s future — Microsoft Copilot laptops. Home windows on Arm may need began with a splutter, providing fairly mediocre efficiency based mostly on important reused smartphone platforms and so-so emulation. Nonetheless, it’s right here in full power with the arrival of Qualcomm’s customized Oryon CPU cores and the Snapdragon X platform. With efficiency and battery life that rivals Apple’s M-series and AI smarts, too, Microsoft and Qualcomm are banking on this leveling up the Home windows expertise past the historic x64 paradigm and main a strong problem to Apple, which has grow to be dominant within the premium laptop computer area — significantly among the many inventive industries. Ought to it pan out, Qualcomm can have discovered a approach to break into the ever-lucrative PC market and disrupt the seemingly ironclad AMD/Intel duopoly.

After all, I ought to acknowledge that these Oryon CPU cores (in addition to Phoenix for cell) didn’t originate completely in-house. Qualcomm wolfed up Nuvia for a hefty $1.4 billion in 2021, snagging its customized Arm CPU developments destined for knowledge facilities, together with its engineering experience that included ex-Apple workers, and molding these into the consumer-tier merchandise in the marketplace as we speak. Arm hasn’t been too joyful about this improvement, with legal professionals persevering with to wrack up hefty payments on each side within the ensuing years. Even so, shopping for Nuvia has allowed Qualcomm to lastly shut the hole on Apple’s CPU improvement in each the cell and PC areas in order that price ticket may find yourself being nicely justified in spite of everything.

Lengthy earlier than PCs got here into view, Qualcomm had customized silicon developments in a variety of different product segments, together with augmented actuality and automotive. The model has been influential within the smartwatch and true wi-fi earbud areas. You’ll discover its know-how contained in the Google Pixel Watch 3, for instance, whereas the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, and plenty of others, sport Qualcomm’s aptX Lossless know-how for premium-quality wi-fi sound. aptX audio is one other a type of simply ahead-of-the-curve acquisitions. Qualcomm purchased CSR in 2015, the identical yr that Apple would launch the AirPods, and just about simply as the broader audio area started to concentrate to the true wi-fi buds market. Paired with noise cancelation and chipset improvements, it’s one other purchase that helped it carve out income from a really aggressive market.

Prior to now 5 years alone, Qualcomm additionally purchased Foundries.io (embedded software program developer), Cellwize (5G community automation software program), Autotalks (vehicle-to-everything communication semiconductors), and Augmented Pixels (AR mapping software program), to call just some. Regardless of what it typically seems like, it will be unfair to color Qualcomm as a predator merely shopping for up any and all opponents — it has appreciable R&D groups of its personal, as we’ve coated. Nonetheless, the corporate’s purse holders aren’t afraid to loosen the drawstrings to assist hold it forward of the curve.

With out fawning over Qualcomm any additional, Snapdragon has undergone a gradual enlargement from its 3G/4G origins, which supplied it with a strong platform, to encompassing automotive, laptops, wearables, and extra, which has helped hold its nostril out forward of opponents with narrower focuses. Then there’s the Snapdragon 8 Elite and X Elite; Qualcomm is pushing forward with efficiency that few of its Arm-based opponents can match. To not point out that Qualcomm has cash within the financial institution to put money into huge purchases like Nuvia, again numerous tasks throughout IoT, XR, and extra, and duke it out with Arm, Apple, and many others, within the authorized area. It’s powerful to see Qualcomm being dethroned any time quickly. However by no means say by no means, I suppose; simply have a look at the present state of the once-dominant Intel.

After all, Qualcomm’s baseband enterprise stays a giant earner, too, with fingers within the linked points of automotive, augmented actuality, and smartphones, in fact. Nonetheless, long-term companion Apple is planning to step by step transition away from Snapdragon modems to an in-house design. That’ll go away Qualcomm firmly in an Android-only place when it comes to smartphones (no less than outdoors of patents), which is a bit riskier and marks a major loss for one among its quite a few income streams.

If there’s a larger menace to Qualcomm’s place, it would come from the fallout of its authorized dispute with Arm over customized CPU licenses. If Qualcomm has to halt customized CPUs based mostly on its Nuvia acquisition, that market goes proper again to sq. one. Nonetheless, this appears far much less doubtless after the jury just lately present in Qualcomm’s favor on two counts of the case. I’d additionally keep watch over cheaper alternate options. RISC-V, as an illustration, may push costs down within the embedded and funds compute markets, because it’s an inexpensive different to Arm licenses. Prime-tier Snapdragon chips don’t come low-cost both, and MediaTek will little question be dangling reductions to Qualcomm’s companions. We’ll must see what occurs as soon as Qualcomm’s exclusivity over Home windows on Arm ends in 2025. Maybe others will be part of Apple, Google, and Samsung in hedging with customized cell chipset developments too.

Who is aware of? However for now, Qualcomm is the highest canine within the premium smartphone market and is well-positioned to do nicely within the PC area, too.