Oh, and another thing, Qualcomm tells court: Apple handed Intel our chipping source code Qualcomm has attempted to add another accusation to its 2017 lawsuit against Apple – this time claiming to a San Diego court that Cupertino wasn't just careless with proprietary info, but that it stole "vast swathes" of data to pass over to Intel. The accusation comes in the form of an amendment filed on Monday to a lawsuit …
With the ITC court, which rejected their claim for lack of evidence. That's why Qualcomm wants to see Intel's source code - they want to go on a fishing expedition. Given the lengths that SCO and Oracle have gone to claim stolen code by similar header files I'm sure Qualcomm can find SOMETHING they'll claim is stolen, but seems unlikely either Apple or Intel would do this given the heavy penalties for copyright violation (far, far, far worse than patent violation)
Besides, tests indicate Intel modems don't perform as well as Qualcomm's in low signal areas, so if they stole code they didn't cut and paste correctly!
> That's why Qualcomm wants to see Intel's source code - they want to go on a fishing expedition.
That's so laughable and hilariously stupid to even consider, it's a joke.
Who again dominates the market with superior GSM/UMTS/LTE/5G-modems again? Intel?
Then again, who hasn't finished any of their noncompetitive products in time when it comes to mobile modem-stuff? Qualcomm?! Or Intel?
As if Qualcomm needs ANY of Intel's lacklustre expertise to advance any further ...
Qualcomm is going to begin losing their Android customers to Samsung and HiSilicon once Verizon/Sprint flavor CDMA goes away (end of next year for Verizon, not sure about Sprint) which is the main thing that's kept a lot of Qualcomm SoCs shipping for phones sold in the US or sold as being able to roam in the US.
Qualcomm is using standard ARM cores, no different than HiSilicon, so the modem is the main difference. Qualcomm has already lost in their attempt to extract extra royalties out of Samsung for phones using Samsung's SoC so I expect Samsung will use it on all their phones very soon instead of the doing the split between Qualcomm & Samsung they have been. Not sure if they will sell them to others, but HiSilicon (for higher end) and Rockchip (for lower/mid end) also have SoCs using standard ARM cores. Maybe Qualcomm should have produced some custom cores that didn't suck, if they were able to beat the performance of standard ARM cores they would still have an advantage.
Qualcomm is desperate, because they know the gravy train is at an end. Sure, they will collect the back royalties from Apple, but they won't be able to force them to pay future royalties based on the cost of the device - that's not allowed for patents covered under FRAND, which is required of ALL patents that they submitted to become part of LTE or 5G standards.
The royalties due are not for the frand patents, they are for other non SEP patents in use in a typical mobile device. See the patents that were put up in the lawsuit. Nothing to do with 3gpp.
I'm not sure about desperate, they do have a 5g modem chip field ready whilst the others are still in design or first test chips/product announcements. I don't think Intel has been even demoed theirs over the air.
Also your analysis is old school 4g smartphone centric. With 5g related technologies such as unlicensed widenband in wifi bands become important. None of the competitors you list cover this at scale.
I think you were corrected before, the qualcomm chips are not standard arm cores. They don't use Mali either. You need to consider graphics in your analysis too.
Finally mediatek/hisilicon are struggling with margin. Even Samsung is declining, the working margins/volume mix is now in the flagships from the likes of OnePlus. For reasons of image processing and graphics in addition to the processor and modem, it is unlikely these Chinese flagships will switch out their processors to the cheaper ones. It will only make the customer upgrade cycle even slower.
The Intel thing has been going on for a while as has been reported here with them refusing their obligations in spite of agreeing to them citing that employees involved are outside the US.
BTW if this were true, and Intel did use Qualcomm IP, and no one is "desperate" as alleged, how would it look different?
Oh really, are you going to tell me that Qualcomm is not using standard ARM cores? Like the A75 the 845 uses and the A76 the 855 uses?
An anonymous coward claims to know more? Do tell, since your name is protected from your employer if you work for Qualcomm and are defending their honor!
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
