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Qualcomm and MediaTek

At the heart of every smartphone, tablet, and many laptops is a System-on-a-Chip (SoC). More than just a CPU, an SoC also contains other key parts to make a complete system including a GPU, a 4G/5G modem, an image processor, a video encoder/decoder, a machine learning accelerator, and more.

We have had two big SoC announcements in the last few weeks, from Qualcomm, and from Media:

Qualcomm also unveiled a new set of Arm-based SoCs destined for laptops and detachable computers:

• Qualcomm’s new chips target PCs, handheld gaming consoles
• Qualcomm’s new PC chips are good, but they still can’t match Apple’s M1

There was some controversy about the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 as Qualcomm was less than forthcoming about the internals of the chips, especially its CPU configuration. Charlie Demerjian put it like this: So we asked about the cores in the 8cx Gen 3 via email and the response made things clear, “We are not disclosing for compute or gaming platforms.”

We do know a few things. 1) The 8cx gen 3 uses 4x 3.0 GHz Prime cores + 4x 2.4 GHz Efficiency Cores. Also, it has 14MB total cache (8MB L3+6MB System cache). 2.4GHz is quite high for a Cortex-A55 core, so it looks like the 8cx gen 3 doesn’t use those cores. 2) Then Ryne Hager got the scoop from a talkative engineer, the 8cx gen 3 uses 4x Cortex-X1 cores and 4x Cortex-A78 cores.

Qualcomm’s announcement came just a few days after MediaTek’s announcement:

The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W offers 5 times the performance in the same form factor as the original Pi Zero. It includes 512MB of RAM, Wi-Fi 4, Bluetooth, and access to the traditional Pi GPIO pins.

The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W has the same processor as the Raspberry Pi 3, but it is clocked at 1.0GHz rather than 1.2GHz. Can the Pi Zero 2 W be overlocked to match or even beat the Pi 3? Yes! Here is how.

Qualcomm and Microsoft have launched a new Snapdragon PC aimed at developers who want to test, profile, and debug their apps on Windows 10 and Windows 11 for Snapdragon.

• Apple M1 Pro & M1 Max – Everything You Need To Know – Apple has two new models in its MacBook Pro lineup along with two new processors, the M1 Pro and the M1 Max. Both have up to 10 CPU cores, while the M1 Max has up to 32 GPU cores.
• If There is a Chip Shortage Then Why Not Just Make More Chips? – If there is a chip shortage then why not just make more chips? If there is demand then where is the supply to meet it?
• Atari ST in daily use since 1985 – Just as the title says!
• ChessCoach – A neural network-based chess engine capable of natural language commentary.
• Ocean drone captures video from inside a hurricane – NOAA and Saildrone are collecting scientific data from inside Hurricane Sam.
• How Pinterest utterly ruined photo search on the internet – The social media site is the bane of non-users’ lives, hijacking image search results with a pushy sign-up screen. It needs to stop.
• How credit cards make money – Payments are deceptively complicated.
• Announcing .NET 6 – The Fastest .NET Yet
• Pyjion – a drop-in JIT Compiler for Python 3.10. It can be pip installed into a CPython 3.10 installation on Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows.
• Patreon’s building native video hosting for creators to sidestep YouTube.
• Reverse-engineering the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer’s sound chip from die photos
• Google, Facebook ‘colluded’ to smash Apple’s privacy protections – Google, it’s claimed, struck a deal with Facebook – dubbed “Jedi Blue” – in which the two internet behemoths would “work together to identify users using Apple products,” and set up “quotas for how often Facebook would win publishers’ auctions.”
• Neural Networks from scratch
• A new biography explains the genius of John von Neumann – His peers transformed science. He transformed daily life.

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