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Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon has been reported to have said that Apple could develop a better processor than the M1 chip developed by Apple.
This remark comes in response to a question that Intel and AMD are not developing chips that are as energy efficient as Apple’s M1 chip. Amon said he was confident he would have the best chip on the market with the help of a chip design team who worked with Apple chips in the past and now works at Qualcomm. The chip design team also included Gerald Williams, who once led development of the A-series chips. Williams is one of the leading figures from the A7 installed in the iPhone 5S to the 2018 iPad Pro A12X, and has occupied an important position enough to oversee various component layouts in Apple SoC.
After leaving Apple in 2018, he hired two former Apple executives to establish a new semiconductor startup, Nuvia. But Apple also sued Williams, claiming that Williams had tried to hide plans to form the company, rigged iPhone processor designs, and bought his company from Apple while he was there. Earlier this year, while the lawsuit continued, Qualcomm acquired Nubia for $1.4 billion. Accordingly, it can be said that Qualcomm has acquired know-how to develop energy-efficient chips like the M1 chip.
Of course, CEO Amon also revealed an alternative, saying that if ARM, which has built a long-term relationship, develops a CPU that is superior to the CPU it can design, the option to acquire a license from ARM is always open.
Qualcomm and Apple have been fighting over patent royalties over the past few years, but they settled in 2019 and now Qualcomm is supplying modem chips for iPhones. Of course, there is a possibility that this relationship could be twisted through this remark, but Apple is developing a 5G modem chip in-house and it is expected to be installed in the iPhone in 2023. Related information can be found here.
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