TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 1, 2011 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) announced today that its upcoming award-winning Snapdragonâ„¢ family of smart mobile processors, including the MSM8960â„¢ with integrated 3G/LTE modem, is designed to power devices running the next version of Windows. The companies’ collaboration continues to address the converging and fast-changing mobile computing landscape, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon family of dual-core and quad-core processors will enable optimal computing performance, extended battery life and connectivity, and top-notch graphics and multimedia in devices.

“Qualcomm and Microsoft have a long and productive history of collaboration focused on driving innovation forward, and we are pleased to be among the leaders of the next evolution of mobile computing,” said Luis Pineda, senior vice president of product management, computing and consumer products at Qualcomm. “Our upcoming family of Snapdragon processors is intelligently integrated, optimized for mobile and built smarter, making it the ideal processor to address consumers’ growing demands for new, innovative experiences and usage scenarios that we believe will be delivered by the next version of Windows.”

The first processor in the Snapdragon family to power devices using the next version of Windows will be the MSM8960, which is sampling this month, followed by the quad-core Snapdragon APQ8064â„¢, which is anticipated to sample in early 2012. Qualcomm has built its Snapdragon family of mobile processors from the ground up to deliver enhanced power efficiency for devices running the next version of Windows. The MSM8960 from the Snapdragon family of mobile processors provides the first dual-core solution with an integrated multi-mode 3G/LTE modem and is designed to meet the multi-tasking requirements of the next version of Windows. The Snapdragon family of mobile processors will include dual and quad asynchronous CPU cores that can be independently controlled to deliver maximum performance at maximum efficiency.

“Windows 8 will enable customers to have the flexibility, connectivity and power that they expect from Windows today with new, touch-only devices like tablets. This will require high-performing, low-power processors like those from Qualcomm, with features like 3G and 4G wireless wide area network (WWAN) connectivity,” said Mike Angiulo, corporate vice president of Windows planning, hardware and PC ecosystem. “We collaborate with Qualcomm because Snapdragon-powered devices will help Windows 8 consumers experience more out of their Windows device and enable hardware manufacturers to try exciting new PC designs.”
Qualcomm will be showcasing the latest Snapdragon-powered tablets and smartphones at COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2011. For more information on Snapdragon processors, please visit www.qualcomm.com/snapdragon.

The U.K. company, which licenses its designs for use in chips made by companies such as Samsung and Nvidia, is betting that growing consumer interest in tablets will translate into a big jump in its market share. Chips based on its technology already power most of the leading tablets including Apple’s iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Motorola’s Xoom.

“Today we have about 10 percent market share [in mobile PCs]. By the end of 2011 we believe we will have about 15 percent of that market share as tablets grow,” said Tudor Brown, president of the U.K.-based company, during a news conference at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “By 2015, we expect that to be over 50 percent of the mobile PC market.”

ARM-based chips already power most of the smartphones on sale today and its procesors can also be found in a majority of standard mobile phones.

Intel, the world’s biggest chip maker, was caught off guard by the sudden popularity in tablets — sparked by Apple’s iPad — and has been trying to catch up. Intel is expected to discuss its latest attempt to crack the smartphone market, with a chip code-named Medfield, later this week at the Computex show.

ARM’s chances in the mobile PC market got a boost in January when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the next version of the Windows operating system would be available in a version that runs on ARM-based chips. It was a nod to ARM’s lead in the tablet market, where Microsoft has also struggled.

But to maintain that lead and build on its current success, ARM will have to continue developing more advanced processors.

The company’s next processor design, the Cortex A15, promises a five-times performance improvement over current smartphone processors while drawing about the same amount of energy, the company said when the design was announced in September last year.

ARM has already begun licensing the design to chip makers, and the first prototypes of chips based around the A15 design could be out around the end of the year, Brown said. Commercial chips based on the A15 will likely follow in 2012.

The A15 is currently based on a 32 nanometer or 28 nanometer production process. The nanometer measurement defines the size of the smallest feature on the chip’s surface and a smaller number denotes a more advanced manufacturing process. It also typically means chips can be made more powerful and less power-hungry.

ARM, which works on chip production technology with IBM, is also planning more advanced chips.

“We’ve been working at 20 nanometer and we’ve had test chips at 20 nanometer for over a year,” Brown said. Earlier this year the company said its partnership with IBM will be extended to 14 nanometer.

NVIDIA demoed the new goodness on a Honeycomb slate with 1280 x 800 resolution and the frame rates remained smooth throughout. In order to emphasize the generational leap that we can expect with Kal-El, the company switched off two of the four cores momentarily, which plunged performance down to less than 10fps. That means the simulations we’re watching require a full quartet of processing cores on top of the 12-core GPU NVIDIA has in Kal-El. Mind-boggling stuff. Glow Ball will be available as a game on Android tablets once this crazy new chip makes its way into retail devices — which are still expected in the latter half of this year, August if everything goes perfectly to plan. One final note if you’re still feeling jaded: NVIDIA promises the production chip will be 25 to 30 percent faster than the one on display today. Full video demo follows after the break.