The latest figures show that AMD fell back to a 4th place and Qualcomm and Samsung are now ranked second and third. The number five is even harder to guess: FreeScale is in front of Nvidia.
Amazing changes brought by the rise of the mobile market. Worrying as well as AMD is suffering so much on its traditional desktop market that a near monopoly by Intel is close. Looking at turn-over AMD with $3,6 billion is now at 1/10th of Intel´s CPU business.
The interesting question is if Samsung can keep it´s high position on the list when the contract with Apple ends.
Currently shipping CPU´s to Cupertino is responsible for over 80% of sales, but Samsung is selling much more phones and tablets per year. If they would exclusively use their own Exynos processors in the line-up, they could easily make up for the numbers shipped to Apple.
More data over here http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4414756/Qualcomm–Samsung-pass-AMD-in-microprocessor-sales #Tech
I loved AMD when I used to build my own PCS for gaming. It's time they venture out into building processors for DIY tablets too. DIY tablets for under $200. Sold.
I second that +Carmelyne Thompson! Back in the day the performance for price of AMD was where it was at.
A built-to-order / DIY tablet; yes I´m in as well +Carmelyne Thompson Mix and match screens, batteries and logic boards would be a start. Putting a SoC on a board would be great but integration and size will prohibit it.
The main attraction for DIY of AMD was that you could keep upgrading older motherboards +Paul Spoerry
Also, I think DIY tablets will either use the new FireFox OS or Android. 🙂
I toured Freescale (then a part of Motorola) when I was younger. They pointed out to us the thousands of every day items like car stereos that used their chips. Your watch, your car or your microwave probably don't have intel inside.
mm… maybe for some but the main attraction for myself and the people I knew building computers was that we could build a higher performing pc for less money than if we went with Intel +Max Huijgen. Back when I was a hardcore pc gamer we didn't really "upgrade" older boards… we built entirely new gaming boxes at least once a year.
Ah, but I was into hard-core 3D graphics programming so there was no alternative for dual and quad core Intel CPU´s in those days +Paul Spoerry
My microwave makes the sort of happy sound when it´s done which I still associate with the Intel inside ads +David McMeekin but no, guess it has a different processor 😉
+Carmelyne Thompson Ubuntu is positioning themselves to be in that market as well (I think the whole point of their Unity UI is that it scales from phone, to tablet, to pc).
+Max Huijgen Gotcha. I remember when I kinda sadly had to say, "AMD just isn't keeping up." and required "Intel Inside".
We got a 386 from Intel in an IBM box as IBM nor Intel knew what to do with the performance. 3D was made for it, but not a lot people were willing to write native 386 code at that time +Paul Spoerry
For those of you who don't work in the industry, 'Freescale' is Motorola's old semiconductor business, that they split off a while back.
the settop provider +Lionel Lauer but still amazing that they beat Nvidia to the 5th place.
+Max Huijgen The thing that most people don't get is that the majority of silicon sold isn't obvious stuff like CPUs, but microcontrollers, glue-logic & other small stuff.
I wonder if those figures include ATI under the AMD banner? There is no doubt though that AMD are falling behind. I suppose it is a catch 22. Your sales drop so you can't invest on new designs so your sales drop more. I hate any company having an absolute monopoly so in a way I am quite happy that Intel has failed in a big way to get into the mobile market. They might even start to take a hit in the server market if ARM servers gain any ground.
So basicly ARM is the new direct competitor of Intel.
Without a doubt +chris vighagen they are a fraction of the price of an Intel chip but they are in everything these days.
Intel is pumping large amounts of money in R&D to basically develop slower, but much more energy efficient chips.
But in six months time you can expect Intel to have some design wins in mobile +Mark S
Frankly, I don't trust Intel as far as I can throw them. My builds will always be AMD. Intel just comes off as having a shitty anti consumer attitude.