ARM's Impact on the Chip Market: 100M China-Designed SoCs Shipped in 2013
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 6, 2014 8:00 AM EST
At its second ever Tech Day, ARM shared a pretty interesting slide about its impact on the mobile SoC market. ARM's business model allows for pretty much anyone to be a player in the SoC space. This is in stark contrast to the PC business that's dominated by a single silicon player, with perhaps one lower volume second source. ARM's IP licensing business has paved the way for a number of low cost SoC vendors, particularly those based in China, to enjoy substantial marketshare. While we've only reviewed a single MediaTek based device on AnandTech, the numbers out there are increasing tremendously.
Tablets in particular are the perfect target for low cost SoCs given that you can successfully ship a WiFi-only design. ARM's chart above shows just how successful its China-based SoC vendors have been in the tablet space, shipping over 100M SoCs in 2013 (~40% of ARM's tablet business).
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jjj - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
You need to be clearer that you are talking tablets, starting with the headline."Tablets in particular are the perfect target for low cost SoCs given that you can successfully ship a WiFi-only design."
Not all that true.
" MediaTek's shipments of smartphone solutions are likely to top 80-90 million units in the second quarter compared to 75-80 million shipped a quarter earlier"
source: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20140505PB200.html
You do point out that you've reviewed only 1 Mediatek product and , i would add, shared few news on them or others like Rockchip, Allwinner and so on.But you should stop ignoring them. Mediatek by revenue is bigger than AMD , Nvidia, Marvell and many others and by volume it has a huge share.
In PC the US was the center of the world but in phones, that's China. So ... find 150$ and buy a cheap octa core to review already :P
name99 - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
WHY? Let me give you the review for your $150 phone:- built quality is lousy, as are the screen and the speaker
- random mishmash of software from all over the place, some works some doesn't
- strange lags and stutters
- the octacore seems of no practical value, and the phone feels very slow compared to a flagship or even a midrange phone
- battery life is surprisingly poor, and WiFi range is worse than expected
There you are. Doesn't matter if the phone is based on Mediatek, Allwinner or Rockchip.
What magic do you expect is living in a $150 phone that makes it interesting? There's a reason cheap phones are cheap --- everything is slightly to substantially worse than the equivalent in an expensive phone.
przemo_li - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - link
Go check GoClever.That is Polish OEM, (but manufacturing happen in china...), and they produce good 150$ stuff.
And whole point of stock Android is that software is good.
"Premium" OEM overlays suck more/are inconsistent more (and to be fair bring some good ideas)
extide - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
LOL @ "...with perhaps one lower volume second source."Man that's all AMD is reduced to these days? PERHAPS a lower volume second source? Geez!
Stochastic - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - link
That does seem a bit harsh even if accurate.misuspita - Friday, May 9, 2014 - link
"Intel maintained the lead on the market of x86 central processing units in Q1 2014 with 82.8% share, but lost about 3% compared to the same quarter a year ago, according to Mercury Research. AMD managed to increase its share to 16.9% from 14.3% in the Q1 2014"Perhaps a lower volume? And some doubt the nickname "Inteltech" has any resemblence to the truth...
deedewald - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Yes I totally agree that the article is not clear and not able to express it in a correct way. No doubt that RM's IP licensing business has paved the way for a number of low cost SoC vendors. Have a look at http://www.lightspeedgmi.com/.