The European Commission is pushing for self-sufficiency after the global semiconductor shortage has proven unreliability in sourcing material from Asian and U.S. suppliers. This was highlighted in plans that were announced on Wednesday for a new chipmaking “ecosystem”.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen feels that ‘digital is the make-or-break issue’ and announced in a policy speech at the Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday that a new Chips Act for Europe will be presented. Its aim will be to jointly create a state-of-the-art European chip ecosystem, including production.

The source of the EU legislators’ concerns was cited as the global shortage of semiconductors that has led to production slowdowns and delays for a variety of products that rely on chips for data processing – from cars and trains to smartphones and other consumer electronics.

The Europe Chips Act will also aim to link together the European Union’s semiconductor research, design, and testing capacities. This will help boost the bloc’s self-sufficiency and will develop new markets for ground-breaking European tech.

The Act will be made up of three elements: Firstly, a semiconductor research strategy that will amplify work being done by institutions such as LETI/CEA in France, IMEC in Belgium, and Fraunhofer in Germany.

The second component will be a coordinated plan to increase chipmaking capacity in Europe. And the final part will establish a framework for international partnership and cooperation.

“There is no digital without chips,” said von der Leyen. “While we speak, whole production lines are already working at reduced speed despite growing demand, because of a shortage of semiconductors.

She also emphasized that while global demand has exploded, Europe’s share across the semiconductor value chain has shrunk. The matter was declared as something not just about competitiveness, but about tech sovereignty.

Lastly, in additional documents released today, the EU said that the Chips Act will bolster existing initiatives such as the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act that aims to contain the power of internet giants, Artificial Intelligence Act for the regulation of applications of AI, and a beefed-up code of practice that tackles online disinformation. This will be combined with a boost to the investment in regional digital infrastructure and skills.

In other related news, Qualcomm’s CEO has confirmed plans to work with European foundries to boost chip production.

RELATED:

• Europe aims to produce 20% of world’s semiconductor and build its first quantum computer
• Huawei unit invests in semiconductor based firm called German Litho
• Apple warns about chip shortage impacting iPhone production
• Qualcomm CEO confirms plans to work with European foundries to boost chip production

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A new report from Strategy Analytics reveals that the global market for application processors (AP) grew by 21 percent year-on-year to $6.8 billion in the first quarter of this year, i.e. Q1 20201.

Qualcomm led the smartphone with a 40 percent revenue share, followed by MediaTek with 26 percent. Apple stood third with a 20 percent share in the market. Samsung LSI and Huawei HiSilicon complete the list of top five vendors.

The report adds that 5G application processors accounted for 41 percent of the total smartphone APs shipped in Q1 2021. Among them, entry-level 5G APs are sought after, such as Snapdragon 480 and Dimensity 700, which will help phone makers to bring the 5G connectivity to lower price tiers.

Qualcomm and MediaTek benefited the most with the forced exit of HiSilicon from the market due to several trade restrictions. Both companies gained double-digit shipment growth in Q1 2021. On the other hand, HiSilicon‘s smartphone AP shipments declined 88 percent in the same timeframe, per Strategy Analytics’ estimates.

Apple, Samsung LSI, and Unisoc also witnessed growth in shipments as well as revenue in the first quarter. With the increase in demand post-pandemic and new technologies like 5G, the growth momentum is expected to continue throughout this year.

Huawei has already sold off Honor to make it an independent brand so that it doesn’t have to adhere to the trade restrictions and can continue to grow. Now, it remains to be seen if Huawei will spin-off HiSilicon into an independent chip business.

RELATED: 

• Smartphones with 4nm Qualcomm SM8450 will not debut in H2 2021, says Redmi’s Wang Teng Thomas
• Qualcomm’s next-generation IoT solutions will power digital signage, industrial handhelds, and more!
• AMD, MediaTek, and Qualcomm drove up demand for TSMC’s 7nm process in Q1 2021

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Xiaomi’s chip-making plans may have taken a backseat in the past couple of years, but the company is still determined to improve its position in the industry. In this regard, Xiaomi has taken a strategic stake of roughly 6% in the chip designer company, VeriSilicon Holdings Co Ltd. With this investment, Xiaomi is now the second-largest external shareholder of the company. 

The investment was made by a fund run by Xiaomi in June and was revealed in a filing to the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) published online last Thursday. It’s worth noting that China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, a nation-level fund for the domestic semiconductor industry is its largest external shareholder.

VeriSilicon is based in Shanghai and has over 700 employees with 5 R&D centers in the US and in China and 10 sales offices worldwide. Founded in 2001, it is a Silicon Platform as a Service company which acts as a contractor to other semiconductor companies.

Editor’s Pick: Xiaomi’s Mi Superbass Wireless Headphones launched in India for ₹1,799

History has shown us that making chips is not an easy business and Xiaomi sure had its share of struggles. After establishing its semiconductor division back in 2014, it took three years for Xiaomi to release its independent processor called the Surge S1. After using it in just one model, we haven’t heard much about its chip making plans. Earlier this year, we received a short update from one of the Xiaomi executives that the second generation Surge S2 chip was still in development but was delayed due to unexpected issues. Later it was said that Xiaomi was focusing its semiconductor business for IoT devices. However, since then we haven’t heard much from this division. 

Processors are the heart of any electronic device, including smartphones. And US based Qualcomm rules this market which puts many Chinese smartphone companies at risk. So it is no surprise that China is trying hard to strengthen its position in this industry to support its tech companies.

The Chinese semiconductor industry is growing pretty quickly. For example, China’s Huawei Hisilicon unit is doing well, with its flagship Kirin chipset capable enough to take on Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon models. Even Xiaomi backed Huami has developed its own Huangshan No.1 chip for wearables based on RISC-V architecture. 

UP NEXT: Honor Confirms Futuristc Smart Screen TV Business!

(Source)

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Over the past few years, Samsung has solidified its position as a chipset manufacturer with its ARM-based Exynos series chipsets. These processors take on the big players like Qualcomm and MediaTek, even in the mid-range market. Earlier this week, Samsung released its brand new Exynos 7 series 7904 processor. So, let’s take a closer look at where this processor stands among the competition.

Before we move on to the actual specifications of the processor, first let’s agree that Samsung has a messed up processor nomenclature. You can’t really make out where each processor stands in the lineup just by looking at their names. Unfortunately, this is a trend among various semiconductor companies. Both Qualcomm (I have tried to explain their mid-range chipsets here) and Intel have been criticized for their naming scheme and I guess, we can’t do much about it at the moment.

One thing we know for sure is that the new Exynos chipset is tailored for the Indian market. According to recent information, the new Samsung Galaxy M20 will most likely carry this chipset. However, we don’t know whether we’ll see this chip outside of India. 

Exynos 7904 has a weaker CPU than the 7885

Coming back to the Exynos 7904, it should be seen inside mid-range smartphones from Samsung. It features 2 x ARM Cortex-A73 high-end cores clocked at 1.8GHz for heavy duty tasks and 6 x ARM Cortex-A53 power efficient cores clocked at 1.6GHz for basic activities. Seeing this specs sheet, we can say that the 7904 is not really built for power-hungry applications.

The A73 cores should be able to handle most moderate to high intensive tasks, but it will start to struggle if you try to multi-task. Even the Mali-G71MP2 GPU doesn’t instill confidence in its graphics processing capabilities. It might have a large core (similar to the 1.2GHz Mali-G71 MP1 on the Exynos 7885) but don’t expect it to handle heavy games like a Qualcomm SD660.

Honestly, when you look at the specs, the Exynos 7904 naming doesn’t look very appropriate. This might be a personal opinion, but the new Exynos chipset feels like an extension of the Exynos 7885 rather than a brand new chip. Here’s why:

Exynos 7904 vs Exynos 7885

There is one particular area where the Exynos 7904 is better than the 7885 — ISP. The new chip upgrades its ISP adding support for 32MP + 32MP (Front+Rear) or Dual 16MP + 16MP or triple cameras. Yes, the new chipset boasts of being capable enough to handle three cameras at the back. The third camera can reportedly function as a wide angle sensor or a bokeh sensor.

Now that we’ve established the Exynos 7904 is better than the 7885 only in some aspects, let’s take a look at where it stands among its competition.

• RELATED: Samsung Galaxy A30 spotted on Geekbench, packs Exynos 7885 SoC and 4GB RAM

Exynos 7904 vs Snapdragon 636 vs Snapdragon 632

At present, the Snapdragon 636 is considered as the standard mid-range offering from Qualcomm. The SD630/632 are lower mid-range offerings while the SD670/710 are for upper mid-rangers.

Considering its specs, the Exynos 7904 would be better placed between the Snapdragon 636 and the Snapdragon 632. Snapdragon 636 is more powerful with its 4 x  Cortex A73 Kryo cores. Even the Adreno 509 GPU and support for UFS storage gives it an edge over the new Exynos chip. 

When compared to the SD632, the Exynos 7904 should be close to its performance. But even here, the Qualcomm chip should have an edge. The SD632 has four performance cores while the Exynos chip has just two.  However, overall, when you look at CPU and GPU together, the Exynos 7904 should go head to head with this Qualcomm chip on paper. But there are a few areas where the Exynos model is clearly better. For example, the chip supports LPDDR4X and Cat 12 / 13 (downloads/uploads). Even the ISP is better than the SD632. So, the Exynos 7904 should ideally be placed between the SD636 and SD632.

Latest rumors suggest that the Galaxy M20, which is expected to feature the Exynos 7904 will be sold somewhere around $180. At this price, the new chip would offer pretty good value to customers.

But in general comparison, it’s still a lower mid-range processor. In terms of performance, both the Snapdragon 636 and Snapdragon 660 should do much better than the new Exynos model.

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Weibo user @ice universe has benchmarked the top 6 processors against each other and the results are pretty interesting. He has also listed out the strong points of each processor.

The result shows Huawei’s Kirin 960 winning scoring highest in memory latency, memory bandwidth, and Dijkstra algorithm value. The Helio X25  CPU  is no slouch either as it wins in some areas too. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 chip also ranks in HDR and Face Detection.

READ MORE:  Xiaomi Meri Rumored to feature In-House Processor

Samsung’s Exynos 8890 is best at encryption and lossless data compression (LZMA). The older snapdragon CPU however fails to win any category which is not surprising as the Snapdragon 821 is supposed to be better than it in all ways. But it does score a little higher than the SD821 in encryption.

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It’s the battle of the processors. On one side we have Huawei’s own octa-core Kirin 920. On the other side we have Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 805. Who will emerge victorious?

The Kirin 920 was made using 28nm architecture and uses the big.Little framework. It consists of four Cortex-A15 (1-2.5GHz) cores and four Cortex-A7 (1.2-1.6 GHz) cores, both being very powerful cores. Its GPU is the Mali-T628, ARM’s newest GPU, which can support a display resolution of 2560 x 1600. Its frequency band is the BalongV7R2 which supports LTE Cat 6 (the Kirin 910’s built-in Balong V7R1 is Cat 4). It’s the first band to be integrated with the Cat 6. It also supports roaming, SGLTE/CSFB and 4G voice messaging programs like VoLTE.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 is a 64-bit processor with each core having a main frequency of 2.7GHz. Its GPU is the Adren 420. It also supports high-resolution display screens. It uses the Gobi 9×35 modem and, like the Kirin 920, supports Cat 6. At most, it can run on 300mbps. It also supports Blue Ray 4.1, GPS and other features.

Samsung’ will release an LTE-A version of the Galaxy S5 with the Snapdragon 805 while Huawei’s Honor 6 will use the Kirin 920. Which one do you think will be better?

Samsung Galaxy S5 LTE-A Edition

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