It takes another lithography to compete with A14 - New Qualcomm and Mediatek rumors/leak on 4nm

[williamcll]

As both Samsung and TSMC have begun working on 4nm chip fabrication, rumors regarding the next generation of Android focused ARM chips have surfaced: It is believed that Qualcomm's new 898 will be built on Samsung's 4nm and MediaTek Dimensity 2000 will be built on TSMC's 4nm

 

Last month it was mentioned by popular leaker 数码闲聊站 that this would be the following specs for both chips:

Quote

The Snapdragon 898 will be fabbed at Samsung using its 4nm manufacturing process and the SoC would employ an octa-core CPU that consists of a Cortex-X2-based main core clocked at 3.0 GHz along with 3x Cortex-A710-based performance cores running at 2.5 GHz. The energy-efficient Cortex-A510-based cores will be clocked at 1.79GHz while the Adreno 730 GPU will take care of the graphically-intensive workloads. The Dimensity 2000 would feature an identical configuration but the cluster of three performance cores is said to be clocked at 2.85 GHz - considerably higher than the Snapdragon 898's ones. The GPU is rumored to be Mali-G710 MC10. Notably, MediaTek's flagship silicon will be based on TSMC's 4nm manufacturing process.

Recently, he also uploaded the following picture:

Quote

what has come to be known as the Snapdragon 898, the successor to the 888 (note that some have labeled it the 895 instead). The Device Info HW app is showing on the screen and confirms the configuration of the new flagship chip. The prime core – that should be based on the Cortex-X2 – is running at 3.0 GHz. Next up are three Cortex-A710 based mid-cores clocked at 2.5 GHz and finally four efficient Cortex-A510 derived cores at 1.79 GHz. This exactly matches recent leaks. While most flagships chips of the next generation will use a similar CPU makeup, the GPU will be unique to the Snapdragon 898. Unfortunately, we don’t know what kind of performance uplift we can expect from the Adreno 730, but architectural improvements over the Adreno 660 will be combined with improvements from the new Samsung 4 nm process (+20%, according to some rumors).

IceUniverse has this to say: slow single core than A13 but for multicore it's on par with A14.

My thoughts

What surprises me this time is the specs for the mediatek chip, who is commonly more known to produce mid to low-range processors. I also expect that these are going to cost more than the past generation due to the epidemic.

 

Sources

https://www.gsmarena.com/snapdragon_898_and_dimensity_2000_specs_revealed-news-51514.php

https://weibo.com/6048569942/KDzXQwTjE

https://www.gsmarena.com/photo_of_a_snapdragon_898powered_phone_confirms_the_clock_speeds_of_the_three_cpu_clusters-news-51707.php

[WhitetailAni]

And this is competing with the A14, Apple’s last-gen chip?

I mean I’m impressed if this actually performs on par with an A14 but still

[DrMacintosh]

The reason Apple has always been so ahead with SoC performance is that Apple designs their processors to deliver a certain feature set. Recently that has been battery life, machine learning, and image signal processors. Meanwhile Android smartphones get faster year over year simply because that's what was available off the shelf from Qualcomm. 

[williamcll]

4 hours ago, FakeKGB said:

And this is competing with the A14, Apple’s last-gen chip?

I mean I’m impressed if this actually performs on par with an A14 but still

Well it is supposed to be a better lithography then even the A15 soooo

[porina]

4 hours ago, williamcll said:

As both Samsung and TSMC have begun working on 4nm chip fabrication

Maybe I'm reading that other than intended, but it makes it sound like Samsung and TSMC are only just starting to look at "4nm" process, where in practice they have been doing it for years. Maybe it is meant that they are going into production?

 

TSMC's 4nm family is an enhancement of their 5nm, which they have been doing for quite a while now. Their N4 process is supposed to be in risk production now, with volume production in 2022.

 

On Samsung side, as far as I can tell, 4LPE process is in production now.

[williamcll]

5 minutes ago, porina said:

Maybe I'm reading that other than intended, but it makes it sound like Samsung and TSMC are only just starting to look at "4nm" process, where in practice they have been doing it for years. Maybe it is meant that they are going into production?

 

TSMC's 4nm family is an enhancement of their 5nm, which they have been doing for quite a while now. Their N4 process is supposed to be in risk production now, with volume production in 2022.

 

On Samsung side, as far as I can tell, 4LPE process is in production now.

We'll know soon enough once the announcements start coming

[WolframaticAlpha]

6 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

The reason Apple has always been so ahead with SoC performance is that Apple designs their processors to deliver a certain feature set. Recently that has been battery life, machine learning, and image signal processors. Meanwhile Android smartphones get faster year over year simply because that's what was available off the shelf from Qualcomm. 

Not really. The focus on feature sets sure helps, but the main reason apple is winning is that it designs it's own CPU cores, and has very good optimization even on the firmware level. Samsung and Qualcomm use off the shelf ARM cores. 

[RejZoR]

40 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Not really. The focus on feature sets sure helps, but the main reason apple is winning is that it designs it's own CPU cores, and has very good optimization even on the firmware level. Samsung and Qualcomm use off the shelf ARM cores. 

It probably helps that Apple also makes own OS where Samsung or whoever vendor with Android ecosystem takes Android off the shelf and chipset off the shelf and they bolt them together. Apple really knows what they need to do to achieve X and Y on both, hardware and software level. They don't have what they don't need and they have what they absolutely need or want. They don't depend or rely on Qualcomm to do things they need, they just do them. It's why Apple swaps whole platforms so easily. Just look at transition from x86 to ARM. Microsoft, after all these years still struggles to make ARM really usable and relevant. All ARM Windows systems are ridiculously expensive and in most cases worse than anything x86. MacOS, apart from few minor quirks, it was a smooth transition that took just a single year. They even baked x86 emulation into the M1 to aid transition.

[Ydfhlx]

I don't think there is an easy explanation on why is Apple so far ahead...

 

If there were and we knew it, Android phone manufacturers would pay us millions

[igormp]

2 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Samsung and Qualcomm use off the shelf ARM cores.

Samsung did use to make their own cores, but that division has been canned and now they used regular ARM cores  

[Doobeedoo]

Can we just see a big cores like Apple does for Android phones already... maybe with ARMv9 eventually we'll see a better design.

[WolframaticAlpha]

5 hours ago, RejZoR said:

It probably helps that Apple also makes own OS where Samsung or whoever vendor with Android ecosystem takes Android off the shelf and chipset off the shelf and they bolt them together. Apple really knows what they need to do to achieve X and Y on both, hardware and software level. They don't have what they don't need and they have what they absolutely need or want. They don't depend or rely on Qualcomm to do things they need, they just do them. It's why Apple swaps whole platforms so easily. Just look at transition from x86 to ARM. Microsoft, after all these years still struggles to make ARM really usable and relevant. All ARM Windows systems are ridiculously expensive and in most cases worse than anything x86. MacOS, apart from few minor quirks, it was a smooth transition that took just a single year. They even baked x86 emulation into the M1 to aid transition.

But look at google. Tensor still didn't manage to dethrone apple. Google would've preferred a halo product to beat apple for sure.

[DrMacintosh]

6 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

but the main reason apple is winning is that it designs it's own CPU cores,

Why would they do that though? The reason is so they can deliver a specific feature set that they want their phones to have. 

[RejZoR]

13 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

But look at google. Tensor still didn't manage to dethrone apple. Google would've preferred a halo product to beat apple for sure.

Everyone calls it "Tensor the Google's own chip", but it's really Samsung's Exynos design. Maybe they tweaked some DSP's and neural stuff, but other than that it's pretty much off the shelf unreleased Exynos from last year...

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Hmm... a14?
Isnt the chip that cam on the iphone13 the a15?

[igormp]

47 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Why would they do that though? The reason is so they can deliver a specific feature set that they want their phones to have. 

Google didn't design the CPU cores tho, they went with off-the-shelf ARM cores and used those to build their SoC.

[DrMacintosh]

1 hour ago, igormp said:

Google didn't design the CPU cores tho, they went with off-the-shelf ARM cores and used those to build their SoC.

I wasn't referring to Google. 

[igormp]

14 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I wasn't referring to Google. 

Oops, my bad, did a wrong reply, it was meant to that:

 

3 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

But look at google. Tensor still didn't manage to dethrone apple. Google would've preferred a halo product to beat apple for sure.

 

[Kisai]

9 hours ago, RejZoR said:

It probably helps that Apple also makes own OS where Samsung or whoever vendor with Android ecosystem takes Android off the shelf and chipset off the shelf and they bolt them together. Apple really knows what they need to do to achieve X and Y on both, hardware and software level. They don't have what they don't need and they have what they absolutely need or want. They don't depend or rely on Qualcomm to do things they need, they just do them. It's why Apple swaps whole platforms so easily. Just look at transition from x86 to ARM. Microsoft, after all these years still struggles to make ARM really usable and relevant. All ARM Windows systems are ridiculously expensive and in most cases worse than anything x86. MacOS, apart from few minor quirks, it was a smooth transition that took just a single year. They even baked x86 emulation into the M1 to aid transition.

Here's an example where Android has been failing miserably:

 

Apple has ARKit, it's is the defacto-standard for all facial mocap now. From budget iphone-only to expensive mocap suit's. Android is so far behind it will not catch up, and stand-alone "using my $80 webcam" setups are not passable, and alternatives such as Intel Realsense, have pretty much withdrawn from the market. In the virtual production environment, nobody will touch Android because it doesn't even offer as much capability as a generic OpenCV 480p webcam for face. Fully-body mocap on iphone works, and doesn't or barely works on webcams. Apple put the logic for ARKit in the cpu (which is why software that uses this functionality requires an A12 or better, even if the device doesn't have the camera for faceID.)

 

 

[LAwLz]

19 hours ago, FakeKGB said:

And this is competing with the A14, Apple’s last-gen chip?

I mean I’m impressed if this actually performs on par with an A14 but still

If those GeekBench scores are correct then the Snapdragon 898 is still behind the Apple A14. The same multi-core score, but quite a bit lower single-core score.

 

 

19 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

The reason Apple has always been so ahead with SoC performance is that Apple designs their processors to deliver a certain feature set. Recently that has been battery life, machine learning, and image signal processors. Meanwhile Android smartphones get faster year over year simply because that's what was available off the shelf from Qualcomm. 

No... Apple's SoC is so much ahead of everyone else because Apple has some of the best hardware architects on the planet working on it. Their CPU architecture is top of the line. Their GPU architecture is top of the line. 

I honestly don't know what you are on about. Do you not think Qualcomm also design their processors to deliver certain feature sets, and focuses on certain things from time to time? 

 

 

12 hours ago, RejZoR said:

It probably helps that Apple also makes own OS where Samsung or whoever vendor with Android ecosystem takes Android off the shelf and chipset off the shelf and they bolt them together.

This is complete and utter bollocks. It's wrong on so many levels and shows a complete lack of understanding of how OSes are developed, and how Android functions on a fundamental level.

 

 

12 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Apple really knows what they need to do to achieve X and Y on both, hardware and software level. They don't have what they don't need and they have what they absolutely need or want.

What does this even mean? Can you give some examples of Apple doing this? What exactly is it that Apple has cut away in their processors because "they don't need it" and what have they added that they need?

 

12 hours ago, RejZoR said:

It's why Apple swaps whole platforms so easily. Just look at transition from x86 to ARM. Microsoft, after all these years still struggles to make ARM really usable and relevant.

Apple's move to ARM wasn't smooth because they have control over both hardware and software. It was smooth because:

1) They have some of the best engineers on the planet focusing on making the best chip possible, so the hardware was fantastic.

2) MacOS has very little legacy in it since they started from scratch in 2001. Unlike Windows which has components in it dating back to like the 80's.

3) MacOS is partially open source which makes porting it easier.

4) Apple already have experience moving from one ISA to another, since they did it back when they move from POWER to x86.

5) The transition wasn't as fast as people think. MacOS has been preparing to run on ARM since 2007. The switch over happened gradually over the source of 14 years. iOS and MacOS have shared major components with one another for over a decade now.

 

 

Microsoft are struggling with porting Windows because Microsoft are terrible at writing software, Windows is a cluster fuck that not even Microsoft understand how it works, and Qualcomm have been completely uninterested in actually competing in the laptop space because it's a tiny market compared to the massive smartphone market. Smartphones are outselling Windows PCs by like 6 to 1. Even if Qualcomm pushed really hard and managed to grab 100% of the PC market it would only increase their revenue by like 15%. It's just not worth it for them.

[LAwLz]

11 hours ago, Ydfhlx said:

I don't think there is an easy explanation on why is Apple so far ahead...

There is. Here is why Apple is so far ahead.

1) Apple has some of the best engineers in the world, and they got a ton of them.

 

2) Qualcomm is essentially a monopoly and do not have to compete. They do not have any incentive to push their chips to the limit because they would just be competing with themselves.

 

3) Apple is able to subsidize the hardware cost because of the money they make from software sales. They can take a very small cut on the hardware sales and then recoup that cost on software sales. An Android OEM however do not have that luxury. For an Android OEM, they need to make most if not all of their money on the initial hardware sale, and on top of that Qualcomm has to make some profits on the hardware sale as well. This means that there is a much higher markup, and as a result both Qualcomm and the handset maker are very interested in keeping the cost of the SoC as low as possible, as to not eat up too much of their profits.

 

4) Most of the Android chipsets have been made using stock ARM cores. These cores have never been designed for performance. They have been a careful balance of power, performance and area, because they were never meant to be used in smartphones exclusively. When Arm design their cores, they design them to go into everything from smartphones to fridges, drones, cars, and so on. In a lot of cases, the size of the chip is important, so Arm has often made design decisions that are not optimal for phones. This changed with the launch of the X1, when Arm finally said "okay, now we will design a chip where we focus on performance". Their first attempt was alright but were kneecapped by poor implementations from Samsung and Qualcomm (way less cache than recommended, and made on a less efficient node than Arm recommended).

 

 

Four easy reasons why Apple are ahead.

Their engineers are better. Qualcomm do not care. Apple can subsidize hardware through software sales. Apple design their cores for performance and efficiency, while Qualcomm (and Arm in general) have balanced performance, efficiency and area (aka PPA).

 

 

This might change soon though.

Arm has shown that they are willing to design cores for high performance (the Cortex X series).

Qualcomm has bought NUVIA, which is a company founded by former Apple CPU engineers, and it seems like Qualcomm want to design their own CPU cores.

Samsung and MediaTek have both said that they want to be a serious competitor to Qualcomm in the Android SoC space, which will hopefully create some more competition in the space. 

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Everyone calls it "Tensor the Google's own chip", but it's really Samsung's Exynos design. Maybe they tweaked some DSP's and neural stuff, but other than that it's pretty much off the shelf unreleased Exynos from last year...

Google's Tensor chip is more than just "off the shelf unreleased Exynos from last year".

Different core setup.

Different fabric interconnects.

Different sized caches and slightly different caching system.

Different GPU (or rather, different configuration of the same GPU architecture).

The imagine pipeline is partially custom.

The TPU is Google's own design.

Google included their own AV1 decoder (seems like the one in Samsung's video decoding block is broken?).

The low-power audio decoding block is Google's own.

 

The list goes on but I think you get the point. I'd argue that it's very much a hybrid design. Google took a reference design from Samsung and tweaked some pretty significant parts of it with help from Samsung. It is certainly not an "off the shelf Exynos" because it's quite far from any Exynos chip.

 

I'd even go as far as to argue that the Google Tensor chip is about as similar to the Exynos 2100, as the E2100 is similar to the Snapdragon 888.

[leadeater]

43 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Microsoft are struggling with porting Windows because Microsoft are terrible at writing software

Depends on the team, there are good ones and bad ones. Microsoft has real problems with none of the teams working together or being aware of what each other is doing while also having this internal idea that similar competing ideas means the best one wins out which just is not the case internally to a company like that because all that actually happens is which ever team manages to catch the favor of the most influential VP wins out which very much is not the same thing as the best idea or implementation winning.

 

They'll also buy companies with successful software and subject them in to this internal structure which completely derails all future development of that software or technology where as if they just left them alone as a subsidiary and just utilized what they do or make under license they wouldn't end up turning good things in to garbage. 

 

Basically for every SQL Server or Exchange Server team within Microsoft there is a SharePoint Server & Teams or Skype for Business team. They have both industry leading software and dog crap.

[DrMacintosh]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Do you not think Qualcomm also design their processors to deliver certain feature sets, and focuses on certain things from time to time? 

If they do focus on those things, I’m certainly not seeing the results of that focus. 

[WolframaticAlpha]

12 hours ago, igormp said:

Google didn't design the CPU cores tho, they went with off-the-shelf ARM cores and used those to build their SoC.

That might be because everyone except Apple has had a disaster with their own cores. Qualcomm had one on the infamous SDM810 iirc and samsung mongoose had become too hot.