Qualcomm surpasses AMD

It’s no secret that the mobile boom is taking a toll on makers of PC components and AMD is one of them. According to data from IC Insights, Qualcomm and Samsung have managed to pass AMD in microprocessor sales last year.

Intel still dominates the market, with $36.9 billion sales and a 65.3 percent market share. However, Qualcomm has managed to squeeze into second spot, with $5.3 billion in sales and a 9.4 percent share. Samsung ranked third, with $4.66 in sales and an 8.2 percent market share. Qualcomm and Samsung also recorded plenty of growth, 28 and 78 percent respectively.

However, AMD slumped 21 percent to take 6.4 percent of the market, with $3.6 billion in sales. It was still ahead of Freescale and Nvidia, as well as Texas Instruments and ST Ericsson.

It should be noted that about 83 percent of Samsung’s revenue came from chips churned out for Apple. In other words, had Apple built the chips on its own, it would have tied with AMD for the third spot.

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Qualcomm Sticks With Windows RT

Tim McDonough, Vice President, Marketing at Qualcomm, was Qualcomm´s commitment to Windows RT. Ever since Microsoft announced Windows RT, ARM supporters had high hopes and Windows RT has yet to live up to some.

Tim confirmed Qualcomm´s commitment to Windows RT and future releases, saying “we are here for the long run”. He describes the partnership as the beginning of a long journey and of course Qualcomm is going to continue rolling out chips that will run great with Windows RT.

Qualcomm mentioned that Samsung ATIV and Dell XPS 10, both of which use Qualcomm’s S4 dual-core APQ8060A chips, run really nice. Tim told us that he is a real fan of both devices and that he is currently using one of them.

We also learned that Snapdragon 600, the one used in the HTC One and some versions of Samsung’s Galaxy S4, is 40 per cent faster than the S4 Pro, adding that Adreno 320 graphics core is significantly faster than the Adreno 225 used in the S4 APQ8060A chip. Another number we got is that the Adreno 330 is up to four times faster than the 225, which is a huge leap forward. Let’s not forget that Snapdragon 800, which is up to 75 per cent faster than Snapdragon S4 Pro, is also coming in mid-year, second half of 2013. The 800 will be Qualcomm’s first chip with Adreno 330 graphics.

One can easily conclude that there should be some Snapdragon 600 and 800 Windows RT convertible tablets at some point in the future. To stay on the safe side, Qualcomm just confirmed that new and exciting things are coming in the next months and quarter and they are Windows based.

We have to notice that most people in the tablet world get really excited talking about convertible tablets in all shapes and sizes, as the physical keyboard is definitely an accessory you want to have.

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