Qualcomm executive Cristiano Amon bluntly stated that Intel's chip manufacturing technology has not yet met Qualcomm's demand, at least for Snapdragon X. When interviewed by Bloomberg on September 5, Amon said Intel "is still not an opt...
Qualcomm executive Cristiano Amon bluntly stated that Intel's chip manufacturing technology has not yet met Qualcomm's demand, at least for Snapdragon X. When interviewed by Bloomberg on September 5, Amon said Intel "is still not an option today" but retains the possibility of future collaboration and adds that "we hope Intel can be an option."
This short but sharp comment comes as Intel is actively promoting the transformation of the wafer foundry, and the company will bet on the future to become a contract manufacturer for other chip design companies, and has repeatedly emphasized its blueprints to attract large external customers. However, Amon's statement means that at least in the short term, it will end one of Intel's most promising high-level customers.
Currently, Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chip is manufactured by Telco with N4 process. This is a mobile SoC that specifically optimizes the high density, low power consumption of 4-nanometer points of GPU and NPU large modules. Qualcomm has begun shipping these chips for new Arm architectures and has shown energy efficiency performance comparable to or exceeding the latest Intel chips. With rapid performance improvement, Qualcomm has become an immediate rival in Intel's thin-screen electronics market, which has also made Amon's statement more substantial.
At the same time, a contradiction in Intel's blueprint was highlighted. The company's upcoming Nova Lake products will partially use tyre-electronic N2 processes, while its own 18A will be retained for lower-level products. In other words, Intel competes with NTEC on the one hand, and on the other hand, it must rely on NTEC on the other hand, and try to persuade manufacturers including Qualcomm to become customers of their own processes.
Intel said in July that if sufficient external orders cannot be obtained or key progress is achieved, 14A of R&D may be suspended or abandoned. After that, the outside world has raised doubts about the execution risks and yield issues at the 18A stage. Amon's latest comments undoubtedly add pressure to the situation.
However, Qualcomm is not completely related to the door of cooperation with Intel. Amon pointed out that as long as Intel can achieve performance and energy efficiency standards, the company is willing to consider it, and both parties have expressed their intention to cooperate in the past. But at least for the time being, Snapdragon X will still be handed over to TECHNOLOGY.
Qualcomm CEO Says Intel’s Chip Production Not Good Enough Yet
