Processor innovations targeting smartphones and tablets are very interesting in a very competitive market where trends and realities evolve at the rapid pace. One can then observe that:
According to ABI Research, standalone application processor shipments
targeting smartphones and tablets expected to grow from 462 million units to
surpass one billion by 2020.
The firm also reveals that market demand for standalone application
processors will ultimately limit opportunities for integrated modem-application
processor platforms (MODAPs) that currently enlighten key suppliers like Qualcomm,
MediaTek, and Spreadtrum.
“Verticalization in the high-end of the mobile phone market is
specifically driving growth in standalone application processor shipments for
smartphones and tablets,” says Malik Saadi, Managing Director and Vice
President at ABI Research. “Apple and Samsung, for instance use separate app
processors and modems in their flagship products.”
One can also observe that:
Modem-application processor platforms (MODAPs) can offer significant advantages, notably
cost, small form-factor, and power consumption, compared with separate
processor and modem. However, MODAPs offer less flexibility for addressing the
high-end segment of the market in which feature-set differentiation and
performance are paramount.
With flexibility in minds, many manufacturers use various chipset SKUs for
every model launched, and each SKU comes with a different set of features at
both the processor and modem levels.
For mobile application processor platforms, product differentiation is quickly shifting
from CPU cores to the use of advanced GPU, DSPs, and ISPs in order to support
innovative features and functionalities. These
include immersive graphics, sensor fusion, hardware level security and
authentication, machine vision, augmented reality, virtual reality, and
artificial intelligence in the future.
The technology commoditization, the great improvement of ARM Cortex core
architectures, and hard competition saw a number of custom CPU vendors exiting
the smartphone market altogether. This left Qualcomm as the sole supplier of
these types of processors.