Qualcomm Will Likely Not Adopt Apple’s Unified RAM Architecture For Snapdragon Chipsets Universally Because Of Its ‘Middle Man’ Position With Notebook Partners

Apple’s unified RAM architecture may not be perfect from a consumer’s point of view, but no one can deny the benefits that come with the ‘on-package’ design that allows the memory to operate at incredibly high speeds with near-zero latency. Qualcomm might have already recognized this approach as superior, but then, if it did, why has the company only adopted this architecture for the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme? The answer has largely more to do with the company’s position as a ‘middle man’ for laptop manufacturers, so Qualcomm needs to make certain decisions that will sustain its business, and not all of them will be consumer-friendly.

Where Apple only needs to make a few configurations, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon range is sold to several OEMs; integrating RAM onto the chip will also increase its costs, something that laptop makers won’t be fond of

A discussion on Reddit started by ‘arcticprimal’ talks about the possibility of Qualcomm adopting a unified RAM architecture like Apple Silicon. In theory, it is highly possible, but economically, this design will be a problem, especially when a company like Qualcomm needs to sell SoCs like the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme and Snapdragon X2 Elite to its notebook partners. While some commenters have stated that there’s too much ‘hopium’ from people to think that Qualcomm will move to this design, let us discuss why those Windows-powered laptops will stick with soldered LPDDR5X RAM for the time being.

The ‘middle man,’ costs problem and increased SKUs

Assuming Qualcomm decides to pursue the development of its own notebooks like Apple, perhaps we’ll witness such a change, but until then, let us discuss why this ‘middle man’ position is resulting in such compromises. Firstly, integrating RAM directly onto the chipset will adversely increase its costs, and manufacturers would rather source DRAM from suppliers like Samsung and SK hynix to retain higher margins. Additionally, this solution would generate more heat, as DRAM tends to get toasty, forcing manufacturers to invest more to develop a robust heatsink.

As mentioned above, the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is the only variant to feature an on-package configuration, but it’s only available with 48GB of memory as standard, which we believe will likely be exclusive to top-tier notebook models stamped with a ridiculously high price. For Qualcomm to universally adopt this unified RAM architecture, it will need to develop a multitude of SKUs for each notebook manufacturer with varying memory counts, meaning these companies will pay a hefty sum for all of those SKUs, with the likelihood that not all of them are going to get sold out.

SKU - X2E-96-100 (18 core)

• On-package memory - 48GB SiP
• Bandwidth - 12 channel, 228GB/sec

SKU - X2E-88-100 (18 core)

• On-package memory - No
• Bandwidth - 8 channel, 152GB/sec

SKU - X2E-80-100 (12 core)

• On-package package - No
• Bandwidth - 8 channel, 152GB/sec

The LPCAMM2 standard is a decent alternative to soldered LPDDR5X RAM and will provide the speeds and latency improvements necessary to replace the latter without removing the user’s ability to upgrade. Unfortunately, when this standard will be widely accepted is a whole different story. For now, the ‘snappiness’ experienced with an Apple Silicon Mac will probably be missing as long as Qualcomm remains the ‘middle man’ for its notebook partners. Perhaps its own Snapdragon-branded laptops could be the answer?

News Source: Reddit

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