ARM architecture server CPU accounted for 7.1%, Qualcomm again into the game

Qualcomm is trying to enter the server processor market again, thus reducing its reliance on the smartphone market, according to people familiar with the matter. As one of the largest buyers in the server chip market, Amazon AWS has agreed to research Qualcomm's products, the sources said.

This is not Qualcomm's first entry into the server chip market. As early as 2017, Qualcomm launched server chip products. However, then no progress. Now in the context of accelerated construction of data centers in various countries, Qualcomm in 2021 to acquire technology startups for the server industry, once again killing the field. It seems to be prepared.

Qualcomm's second entry, perhaps a better time

Currently, Qualcomm is leading the smartphone chip market. In May this year, according to the latest data from Counterpoint, Q1 2022 global smartphone AP / SoC and baseband chip revenue, Qualcomm's global market share of up to 44%, ranking first, followed by Apple (26%), MediaTek (19%), Samsung (7.4%), Ziguang Zhanrui (3%), Heidi (1%).

However, in recent years, the smartphone market growth has been sluggish. In July this year, Qualcomm released its fiscal year 2022 third-quarter earnings report, showed that although revenue and net profit increased significantly year-on-year, however, the company expects that its fourth-quarter revenue will be lower than Wall Street's target because of the difficult economic situation and the slowdown in demand for smartphones may hurt the company's main cell phone chip business.

As you can see, Qualcomm is desperate to find other business growth, not just now. Qualcomm has been trying to expand its business for years to eliminate the over-reliance on the cell phone market. Sources said Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon is trying to transform Qualcomm into a broader business chip provider rather than provide smartphone chips.

And entering the server chip market seems to be a good direction. Qualcomm has tried to enter the server chip market in the past. In 2017, Qualcomm began selling ARM technology-based server chip Centrq 2400 by Samsung OEM. Qualcomm said at the time, from the energy efficiency and cost point of view, the chip was better than Intel's Xeon Platinum 8180 processor.

At the launch of Qualcomm's server chip series in 2017, potential customers such as Microsoft expressed interest in the chip product. However, the attempt was not successful, and Qualcomm has since remained silent on the progress of the server chip Centrq 2400.

Entering a new field will undoubtedly require more investment in capital and workforce. However, at that time, Qualcomm was facing an offer from Broadcom to acquire the company for $103 billion. Although the acquisition was eventually called off, Qualcomm nevertheless needed to cut costs at the time and cut spending in non-core product areas. The fledgling server chip business was among them.

Qualcomm's second entry into the server chip market may be a better time. For one thing, in recent years, with the development of cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and other technologies, the server market, which carries the growth of arithmetic power, has grown steadily. According to data from research institutions, the global server shipments in 2021 will be 13.54 million units, which is forecast to correspond to a CPU market size of 79.9 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 14%.

IDC report shows that companies such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are strengthening cloud computing infrastructure construction, used to transfer data around the world, terminal demand expansion, global cloud, and data center construction will drive continued growth in server sales, which is expected to give rise to a hundred billion dollars worth of server CPU market.

Second, the current downturn in the smartphone business, Qualcomm's determination to seek new business growth more than before, and Qualcomm seems to be more prepared to re-enter the server chip market, 2021 Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon to about $1.4 billion to acquire Nuvia, Nuvia is a technology provider for the server industry, the company's employees include from Apple's chip designers. This provides a boost to Qualcomm's re-entry into the server chip market.

In addition, more and more manufacturers have launched ARM server chips in recent years and achieved market application. The maturity of this market is higher than in previous years. If Qualcomm can successfully enter this time, it is expected to open a new situation for Qualcomm's business growth.

ARM server CPU is more in line with the development trend of the times.

At the beginning of development, based on the performance needs of different scenarios, CPUs developed different architectural routes, the most important being the x86 architecture and ARM architecture. The current x86 architecture route almost monopolizes the PC and server market. The main players are Intel, AMD, and ARM architecture is mainly on the mobile side. The representative manufacturers are mainly Qualcomm and MediaTek.

Currently, the use of x86 processor server sales is larger in the server market. Intel and AMD almost occupy the server processor market. Research firm Media data show that the global server shipments in the second quarter of this year were 3.4 million units, with Intel's share of 69.5% and AMD's 22.7%. In addition, the ARM architecture server CPUs grew significantly, accounting for 7.1% of the global server CPU market share in the second quarter, an increase of 48% year on year.

The ARM architecture has its advantages. In applications in the cell phone sector, the ARM architecture highlights a clear advantage of not running out of battery life. In contrast, in the data center sector, power consumption has become a more pressing issue. As server clusters expand, power consumption is staggering, so data center operators need more efficient chips.

Therefore, the arithmetic power and energy efficiency ratio gradually improves as the ARM architecture matures. Besides smart phones and other mobile phones, some technology companies began to develop ARM processors for servers, including Amazon, Huawei, Ali, Feiteng, etc...

In 2018, Amazon developed its server CPU based on ARM architecture - Graviton, which has been launched for 3 generations so far and is actively promoting the deployment in Amazon Cloud Technology servers, and the deployment of ARM architecture processors reached 15% of its overall server construction in 2021. It is expected that 2022 will exceed 20%.

In 2019, Huawei launched the Kunpeng 920 and the TaiShan server based on the Kunpeng 920. The Kunpeng 920 is licensed based on the ARM architecture, manufactured using a 7nm process, with 64 built-in cores, 2.6GH main frequency, paired with 8 channels of DDR4 memory, 66% increase in total I/O bandwidth, and 4x increase in network bandwidth, and, including two 100G RoCE ports that The Kunpeng 920 processor is used in Huawei's ARM server product line.

Ali's Pictou also previously announced the company's cloud chip Yitian 710, based on ARM's latest ARMv9 architecture design, using a 5nm process, a single chip accommodates up to 60 billion transistors, contains 128 CPU cores, main frequency 3.2GHz, can simultaneously balance performance and power consumption, in memory and interface, Yitian 710 integrated with the industry's leading DDR5, PCIe5.0 and other technologies. PCIe5.0 and other technologies can effectively improve the chip's transmission rate and can be adapted to different cloud application scenarios.

Another player in the ARM server ecosystem is Feiteng, which has launched a series of high-performance CPU products based on ARM architecture, such as FT-1500A, FT-2000, FT-2000+, etc., after switching to the ARM architecture, and has also jointly built a fully independent ecosystem with Feiteng CPU as the core, covering several high-performance computing, server and other The company has also joined hands with more than 400 companies to build a fully independent ecosystem with Feiteng CPUs at its core, covering a wide range of high-performance computing and server applications.

ARM server chips are loved by cloud manufacturers thanks to the ARM architecture itself high-performance, low-power, and low-cost advantages. Huawei Xu Wenwei has said that the advantages of ARM products lie in high performance and low power consumption. Industry insiders even believe that ARM server CPUs align with the development trend of the times.

Qualcomm also joined the ARM server processor chip camp. As more and more vendors to the ARM server chip, the server CPU market's two giants Intel, AMD may feel more competitive pressure.

Final words

In the case of slow growth in the cell phone market, Qualcomm needs to find new business growth points, and the server chip market may be a good direction. If successful, Qualcomm's return to the server chip market will undoubtedly help the company's business growth. While increasing manufacturers embrace ARM server chips, it will also bring competitive pressure on Intel, AMD, and other server CPU giants.