On the opening day of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Tech Summit, the company brought AMD on stage and announced a partnership that would see AMD use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon LTE modems alongside Ryzen Mobile SoCs to enable always connected Windows devices.
PC Perspective’s Ryan Shrout and Ken Addison attended the event and gleaned a few more details about the announcement. According to Ryan on the podcast, AMD plans to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon LTE modems in Ryzen Mobile-powered laptops and tablets. While road warriors will be able to enjoy cellular connected AMD laptops, Ryan notes that these devices may not support the new “connected standby” standard where a Windows PC is able to keep the cellular connection and the PC in a very minimal power state to download notifications, emails, and other updates in the background while the PC is otherwise sleeping.
Reading this announcement piqued my interest though for the future of this partnership. While the first devices are likely to include the Qualcomm modem on the motherboard, in the future AMD may be allowed to integrate the modem into its mobile APUs which would help AMD to compete with Intel in this space. Qualcomm is a big player and could give AMD a strong and competitive wireless solution without AMD having to navigate the murky patent waters and huge R&D costs involved with coming up with its own in-house modems.
What are your thoughts on this Qualcomm and AMD partnership?
Also read:
These modems need to stay off
These modems need to stay off AMD APUs and on the motherboard of the OEM devices that may use them. No one wants that Qualcomm IP directly on any AMD CPU/APU product and let the OEMs worry about that LTE connectivity on their own. Eventually Qualcomm’s not so FRAND patents are going to run out and Qualcomm is looking for some lockin via AMD and AMD needs to stay far away from that and let the OEM decide what connectivity products to offer in their devices.
AMD just needs to worry about getting some APUs out there that support at least a single stack of HBM2 or AMD will have future troubles competeing in the integrated grphics market. Currently non of the Vega HBCC/HBC IP cane work with AMD’s Vega Integrated Graphics because there is no HBM2 based APU SKUs available. Leave that LTE/Other Radio nonsense to the device OEM’s, AMD, and wirk towards getting some mobile Raven Ridge APU SKUs with HBM2 options.
ASUS hurry up and try and offer some desktop Raven Ridge APUs inside of laptop Options like you do with the Ryzen 7 1700 gaming laptops as that’s going to be popular with those that want more powerful laptops that are not trying to be tablets. Laptops are not cellphones and always on/connected means always up in your business 24/7/365!
Yea, I’m not sure what to
Yea, I’m not sure what to think about these “always connected pc’s “. I mean sure, it’s cool n all, from a “what’s possible” sorta perspective, but Im not really seeing the end game.
Perhaps I’m under estimating it a bit, but I’m struggling to see the market for these products to be anything but narrow.
What specific industry/user are these devices intended to accommodate?
Also, i assume a device like this would require a separate mobile data plan? Again, who is gonna be down for that?
I’m terms of AMD throwing
I’m terms of AMD throwing their hat in the ring, and partnering with Qualcomm, I’m excited. I very much would like to see more AMD powered devices in the mobile space. I feel OEMs could offer some very compelling products using AMD tech.
And I guess the Enterprise Market is the target for these particular devices. In which case, the end game is get much there.