Mobile processor history from yesterday to today – 2

In our first file, we explained the first development journey of mobile processors and how they started from a main source. This journey, which started with the birth of ARM, entered a new path with the smartphone revolution. However, it was the actual mobile processors that provided this infrastructure that enabled Apple to adapt it to the smart phone today.

Smartphone revolution and first steps in mobile processor competition

Apple ignited the first fuse of the competition with the iPhone 2G in 2007. In fact, at that time, many brands were after producing a smart device like PDA and phone. Qualcomm, on the other hand, took the first steps to produce an ARM-based portable computer processor that could compete with Intel in those years. iPhone 2G turned all plans upside down.

Apple in 2001 first iPod signed a collaboration that will change the history of mobile processors in the model. This revolutionary MP3 device with a large screen used an ARM processor. As you know, we told about the cooperation between ARM and Apple in our previous file. Both companies had a share in each other’s rebirth. Having pulled ARM out of a major crisis, Apple survived a few years later when it sold its shares of ARM.

Using ARM’s Cortex CPU designs for the smartphone revolution, Apple opened the door to a new era in this way. However, not only Apple entered the door of this new era. Qualcomm, which produced PDA-based phones a few years ago but failed, has been producing ARM-based mobile processors for a while.

Seeing this opportunity, the US company came up with its processor brand called Snapdragon at the end of 2007. As you know, the iPhone 2G appeared in June 2007. In this sense, it is not true that Qualcomm was caught unprepared for this new era. In fact, Qualcomm and Microsoft were the first to keep up with this era.

Today, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone projects are referred to as failed attempts. However, in 2007, when the Android project was still in its infancy, Microsoft already had a mobile operating system. This operating system was a special version of Windows used in PDA devices and handheld terminals. In fact, one of Microsoft’s important partners on this platform was the Taiwanese-based HTC brand, which is looking for its old days today.

Qualcomm and the 1 GHz mobile processor revolution

The 1 GHz processing power, which seems absurd today, was far away for mobile processors in 2007. Most phones that appeared in those years were between 400 MHz and 500 MHz. Qualcomm has been developing ARM-based mobile processors for a long time. It was during this period that Microsoft revealed the new generation Windows Mobile platform.

In this sense, the technology giant, which took action long before Google and Android, also featured the first smartphone using the Snapdragon S1 processor with 1 GHz processing power. The device named Toshiba TG01 had a very large screen for its period with its 4.1-inch screen. HTC Dream, the first Android phone, came with the MSM7201A processor, one of Qualcomm’s pre-Snapdragon mobile processors. This processor, on the other hand, had an ARM 11 core running at 528 MHz.

The Snapdragon S1, on the other hand, used Qualcomm’s customized ARM 11-based custom core called Scorpion. Later on, these specialized nuclei would appear under the name Krait. The Snapdaragon S1 powered a number of smartphones almost until 2011. This first 1 GHz processor caused the Android world to come to life in a short time.

On the one hand, Qualcomm started to lay the foundations of the new era in the mobile processor market, which ARM laid the foundations for. However, if Texas Instruments and Nvidia did not enter the mobile processor market, perhaps Qualcomm would not have come to these days. Before explaining this competition, let’s briefly consider how Qualcomm, which has become an important power in the mobile processor market, has come to these days.

The rise story that started with Qualcomm and CDMA technology

But how did Qualcomm get so big and how did it get the finances to design mobile processors? When Qualcomm emerged in 1985, it was a combination of the letters of the words Quality Communication.

Seven employees at Linkabit came together in this new company under the leadership of Irwin Jacobs. The aim was to conduct research and development for state-sponsored defense projects.

The company, which made its first success with the merger with the Omninet company, raised 3.5 million dollars to produce the Omnitracs satellite communication system. With this project, Qualcomm has earned great income for a long time. The company used this income in CDMA technology, which brought Qualcomm to today.

But what was this technology that laid the foundations of 2G, 3G, 4G and even 5G, and how did Qualcomm revolutionize it? In those years, TDMA technology, which was the communication standard, was patented by Ericsson and the telecommunications industry invested millions of dollars in this technology. But in the 1940s, Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil discovered an alternative multi-frequency method.

CDMA wins TDMA battle Qualcomm

This technology was inspired by the arrangement of musical notes. Accordingly, more than one different frequency could be used to send a single radio broadcast. However, the patent given to the US Army for use in the Second World War was not used and the patent expired. CDMA and TDMA have the following fundamental differences. TDMA uses temporal gaps for multiple people to speak on the same frequency. CDMA, on the other hand, encrypts each dialog in different ways, allowing more conversations to be made on the same frequency.

Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs discovered the potential of CDMA technology. The first patent that tried to be obtained in 1985 was not approved by the FDA. Although CDMA technology was more successful on paper than TDMA, it was quite complex at first. Qualcomm later added to this patent and eventually became the owner of a strategic patent such as the CDMA patent.

However, this patent received by Qualcomm in those years did not seem very important. The company, on the other hand, conducted a series of public experiments that showed this technology to be superior to TDMA. After these experiments, Qualcomm won its first victory in North America. Now two telecom companies have switched from TDMA to CDMA technology.

This technological advantage and Qualcomm’s investments caused the company to gain great value in the 2000s. This financial strength paved the way for new investment areas. And of course the company continues to eat CDMA’s bread even today. Meanwhile, the Soviets’ share in CDMA technology should not be forgotten. Russian scientists, who have been doing secret research and development on this subject for many years, started to use this technology militarily at the end of the 80s.

The mobile processor wars that started with the rivalry of Qualcomm and Texas Instruments

Although 2009 marked the first big leap for the mobile processor market, even before Qualcomm, there was an experienced company that has been producing processors for mobile devices since 2002. In fact, Texas Instruments is a company that has been in the mobile processor market since the calculator era. It is known that the company currently holds important patents in the mobile processor market.

Despite all this experience and dominance of ARM-based processors since PDA devices, Qualcomm’s 2009 move caused the company to push itself economically. OMAP processors, which were previously produced with 130 nm and 90 nm processor architecture, managed to go down to the 45 nm level with OMAP 3 in 2009. In this sense, OMAP processors, which came to the S1 level, which is also 45 nm, quickly caught up with their competitors in terms of processing power.

In the first periods, the rivalry of these two continued, especially on the Android side. However, while these two technology giants were competing, Apple had Samsung designed and produced their processors. However, after a while, Apple began to shift to processors of its own design. The fact that Samsung has turned to Exynos processors in its own processor factory has started to heat up the competition in the mobile processor market. However, in terms of mobile processor history, the Nvidia Tegra processor would change all balances.