Pixel 6 with Google-designed chip points to a future of stupendous diversity in mobile and PCs

In the PC world you either have a computer with an Intel processor, or one with an AMD processor. Even Macs depended on Intel until very recently, and in cell phones the panorama, although more varied, there are not so many options either. Qualcomm, MediaTek, Samsung, Huawei and Apple share most of the pie with their ARM microprocessors.

Everything looks set to change in the future. It is revealed by that Pixel 6 that will hit the market with a Google-designed SoC according to the latest rumors. Apple has already made the leap to its M1 chips in its PCs and laptops, and the ARM revolution means that we are witnessing a change of model in which manufacturers will design their micros and control their launch cycles much more. There will be more competition than ever, it seems, and that’s good news for us consumers.

Watch out Qualcomm: Google is coming

Google has been working on its own chips for some time now. In October 2016 they opened the door to design their own processors for the Pixel family mobiles - rumors of that intention were even earlier - but during all these years there has been hardly any news about it.

The company did begin to make some efforts in that area with the introduction in October 2017 of its Pixel Visual Core, key to the camera of those fantastic Pixel 2s that did not need more than a single lens to put the majority of mobiles on the market to shame in the photographic section.

The effort to develop its own microprocessors and SoCs for cell phones intensified in mid-2017 with the signing of Manu Gulati, who had previously worked for several years in the development of SoCs for Apple phones.

All that work could finally be crystallized this coming fall in the introduction of the Pixel 6. Various sources indicate that this mobile will feature the GS101 SoC, codenamed Whitechapel. The data point to the chip (GS apparently stands for ‘Google Silicon’) being developed in collaboration with Samsung, and would be aimed at both mobiles and even future Chromebooks from the firm.

Long live diversity

The current market situation in the field of semiconductors had us tied to the big manufacturers. In PCs, Intel and AMD share almost the entire pie, while in mobile devices, things are a bit more lively.

In fact, the latest data from Counterpoint reveal that we have six major players here, although two are particularly relevant because MediaTek (which wins by volume thanks to entry-level handsets) and Qualcomm share the lion’s share of the market: 6 out of every 10 handsets currently sold in the world have a chip from one of these two manufacturers.

Behind them are Huawei (with HiSilicon and its Kirin), Samsung (Exynos) and Apple, while a somewhat more unknown Chinese firm, Unisoc, closes this particular ranking.

What do they all have in common? They all make use of the ARM architecture for cell phones. The British firm is responsible for the basic design of the cores and microarchitecture, but licenses these designs so that manufacturers can then add their own innovations to the basic recipe.

Imagining a cell phone and a PC with a processor designed by Google or Microsoft

Apple has been the first to demonstrate that this approach is not only valid for mobiles, but also for laptops and desktop PCs, and now the rumors are piling up: Microsoft aims to follow that path (it already took its first steps with the SQ2) and a few months ago it was learned that they are preparing their own ARM SoCs both for servers -Google is also in that battle- and even for their Surface.

Google and that potential Pixel 6 with the GS101 are another demonstration that manufacturers want to join this trend. If you have your own chip you avoid depending on a third party: you gain control and potentially a lot of money, although logically you end up assuming a task that you previously delegated to those third parties that until now fulfilled (quite well) with that function.

The ambition of these companies in fact goes beyond mobile, and as you can see both Google and Microsoft seem to be aiming for a future in which servers, laptops and desktop PCs are governed by ARM micros designed by them even if they are manufactured by the TSMCs of the world.

The semiconductor giants are seeing the wolf’s ears and are starting to react. Qualcomm recently acquired Nuvia and will work on ARM chips for ultraportables, but the really ambitious change is being proposed by Intel, which has changed its CEO and strategy.

The firm has reached an agreement with TSMC for its future 5nm and 3nm chips and plans to create two new semiconductor fabs that will no longer only serve to produce its own designs, but also those of third parties that contract for that capacity and work on ARM and even RISC-V designs.

This news reveals a lot of movement in the semiconductor industry. With NVIDIA closing the difficult acquisition of ARM it seems clear that a lot could change in the next 3-5 years, and imagining cell phones, laptops and PCs governed by ARM SoCs from Google or Microsoft (and those that come after them) is now perfectly possible.