STEPPING UP | Qualcomm adds security, battery life features to phone chips

Qualcomm Inc on Wednesday revealed new security and battery life features on its latest Snapdragon 845 mobile phone processor, a chip that customarily powers high-end Android-based phones from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and others.

The chips are increasingly important to Qualcomm’s financial picture while its patent licensing business is under attack from Apple Inc.

Qualcomm’s latest chip features a range of improvements to help it deal with artificial intelligence tasks like recognizing and categorizing images, Keith Kressin, a senior vice president at the company, told Reuters in an interview.

For the first time, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip also features physically separate processor called a “Secure Processing Unit” for storing information like fingerprints and iris scans, similar to technology found on Apple’s iPhone. Previous Qualcomm chips had a “trusted zone” that was not physically separate from the rest of the processor.

“With biometric identification on the rise, it was important to take (security) to the next level,” Kressin said.


The company tweaked various parts of the chip for so-called machine learning applications. While that includes things consumers might notice like image recognition, it also includes behind-the-scenes improvements. For example, the chip will help ensure that a user’s fingers do not accidentally register as taps when gripping the sides of an edge-to-edge display.

Kressin said the chip will also help phones register touch screen inputs when wet. That is a critical improvement because even though many top phone models from Samsung and others are now water resistant, they are difficult to operate with water on the screen.

The newest Snapdragon also has features aimed at virtual and augmented reality headsets. One feature called “Adreno foveation” will let the edges of a headset screen operate at lower resolutions while the center of the screen is sharper, similar to how human peripheral vision is fuzzier than central vision. The technique can save battery live, Kressin said.

Qualcomm does not disclose revenue figures for its Snapdragon chips. But they are an increasingly important part of its business because its lucrative patent licensing business is under attack in a series of legal actions from Apple.

Qualcomm is also facing a $103 billion takeover bid from Broadcom Ltd, which earlier this week said it would nominate a slate of directors to Qualcomm’s board.

source: interaksyon.com

ON TRACK | Samsung to take Intel’s chip crown

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is expected to report its best-ever quarterly profit in the second quarter, with soaring memory chip sales pushing it passed Intel Corp as the biggest semiconductor maker by revenue for the first time.

The world’s largest memory chip maker is the among the biggest beneficiaries of soaring demand for processing firepower on smartphones and servers, which has fueled an industry super-cycle amid limited supply growth.

Underscoring its dominant position, Samsung said on Tuesday it plans to invest some $18.6 billion in South Korea as it seeks to extend its lead in memory chips and next-generation displays for smartphones.

The South Korean tech giant, Asia’s third-largest company by market capitalization, is now poised to knock Intel off the top of the global semiconductor market-share rankings for the first time since 1991.

“From the second quarter, Samsung will become No. 1 in market share due to the recent increase in data centers and demand for solid-state drives,” NH Investment & Securities analyst Peter Lee wrote in a note to clients.

Samsung’s April-June operating profit is expected to leap 67 percent from a year earlier to 13.1 trillion won ($11.4 billion), a new high, according to the average forecast from a Thomson Reuters survey of 18 analysts.

The same survey expects July-September profit to be even higher at 13.8 trillion won.

Solid sales of the Galaxy S8 smartphone launched in April likely provided an additional boost, keeping the firm ahead of rival Apple Inc (AAPL.O) as the world’s top smartphone maker.

The S8’s performance has reassured investors whose nerves were shaken last year by the costly withdrawal of Samsung’s premium Galaxy Note 7 due to fire-prone batteries.

Samsung shares are trading at a near-record high of 2.35 million won each as of Tuesday. They have gained 30 percent so far this year on top of a 43 percent surge in 2016.

In the pipeline

“The Galaxy S8 series has been out for more than 2 months now and we see similar traction as the Galaxy S7 series,” Counterpoint analyst Tom Kang said.

Samsung would sell about 49 million S8s by the end of its first full-year release, in line with first-year sales of the Galaxy S7, he said.

Samsung is also preparing to unveil the Galaxy Note 8 in August, a source told Reuters, restoring the company’s schedule of market-moving gadget releases after the interruption of the Note 7 debacle.

The company will issue earnings guidance early on Friday but will not disclose details on its performance until late July.

Nomura has predicted DRAM chip prices will continue to rise in the second half of 2017 due to limited supply and strong demand driven by servers.

Demand for solid-state drives (SSD) and smartphones would maintain profits for producers of NAND semiconductors, despite an easing of a production bottleneck, it said.

source: interaksyon.com

AMD hires chip veterans, diversifies beyond PCs

SAN FRANCISCO — Advanced Micro Devices Inc has hired two senior engineers with experience at Qualcomm Inc and Apple Inc, its latest high-level recruitments as it diversifies beyond a slowing personal computer industry, sources close to the chipmaker said.

Charles Matar, with expertise in low-power and embedded chip design, joined as AMD’s vice president of System-on-Chip Development, two sources said. Matar most recently worked at Qualcomm.

Wayne Meretsky, who worked at Apple in the 1990s on the Mac, was named vice president, software IP development, they said. Meretsky will lead software developments for AMD’s chips.

AMD spokesman Drew Prairie also confirmed that AMD hired the two engineers to help the chipmaker expand into new markets, but he did not provide details.

AMD depends on the PC industry for about 80 percent of its revenue. With sales in that business falling due to a growing preference for smartphones and tablets, the company is rushing to expand into new markets for its chip processors and graphics technology.

One of Silicon Valley’s oldest chipmakers, AMD has experienced major changes in its lineup of executives and senior engineers since Chief Executive Rory Read moved over from PC maker Lenovo in 2011 promising to make the struggling chipmaker more efficient.

In October, AMD announced it was laying off 15 percent of its workforce, its second round of job cuts in less than a year.

Matar and Meretsky both worked at AMD earlier in their careers. Their return follows chip guru Jim Keller, who joined AMD as chief architect in August last year.

Keller was previously a director at Apple in charge of designing mobile processors used in the iPad and iPhone.

Sunnyvale, California-based AMD hopes to increase sales in markets such as communications, microservers, digital signs and stripped down “thin client” computers. It wants those non-PC markets to account for as much as 50 percent of its revenue within three or four years.

Matar will focus on designing SoCs, or “system on a chips,” which integrate several features found on a computer into a single piece of silicon. The technology is widely used in smartphones, tablets and embedded devices.

The chipmaker plans to ship a new low power processor, codenamed Temash, for tablets and hybrid laptops running Microsoft’s Windows 8 platform in the first half of this year.

Its Kabini laptop processor, also planned for early 2013, will have 50 percent better performance than its predecessor, according to AMD.

source: interaksyon.com