Qualcomm has received recognition from brand vendors for its mobile application processors (APs) based on its in-house developed architecture. However, its competitors have started to pick up their pace in releasing new products, and the CPU cores have become less important in SoC products. Amid such developments in the industry, Qualcomm has been forced to rethink its in-house AP development.
Qualcomm has been using its asynchronous Symmetrical Multi-Processing (aSMP) technology to build multi-core processors. With the technology, each core can function independently, providing reasonable performance and power consumption without the need for substantial integration of processor cores. It has helped Qualcomm products stay popular in the market.
However, ARM has also integrated a similar technology into its processor design and has been improving its structures rapidly. Qualcomm's in-house R&D is now hardly able to keep up with the pace. As a result, in addition to mid-range and entry-level product lines, Qualcomm has also decided to start adopting ARM's native structure design for its high-end products, Digitimes Research explains.
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