Qualcomm could not have been a spec on Intel’s radar a decade in the past, however the explosion of the smartphone sector has made the San Diego-based chipmaker one of many greatest threats to the Santa Clara-based tech large’s domination of the logic chip market. Whereas Intel struggled to ascertain a presence within the smartphone market, resulting in an eventual exit from the phase altogether, Qualcomm has steadily been spreading its tentacles into what was as soon as strictly Intel’s (and AMD’s, to a lesser extent) area: conventional desktop and laptop computer computer systems.
With ARM-based Home windows 10 laptops all set to launch with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 chips and Xiaomi rumored to launch its personal Home windows 10 laptops with the Snapdragon 845 someday subsequent yr, you may need thought that that is pretty much as good as it’s going to ever get for Qualcomm in 2018. Nonetheless, newest experiences now appear to counsel that the corporate could have much more excellent news for its traders and well-wishers within the coming yr.
Two new merged commits to the Chromium codebase appear to indicate assist for a brand new board named ‘cheza’ that runs ‘chipset-qc845’. As might be seen from the screengrabs beneath, there are a number of extra references to ‘chipset-qc845’ alongside mentions of ‘chromiumos-qualcomm64’, which, taken collectively, are a transparent giveaway that Chrome OS could also be including assist for Qualcomm’s upcoming top-end SoC. And that may solely imply one factor – the Snapdragon 845 is coming to a Chromebook close to you.
Not like Home windows 10 on ARM, although, which is a novel idea that’s solely now coming to fruition (however the catastrophe that was Home windows RT), Chrome OS on ARM has been frequent for a very long time, with chips just like the Rockchip RK3288-C powering among the lower-end Chromebooks just like the ASUS C201 that’s presently listed on Amazon for $227.99. There’s additionally the Rockchip RK3399 that powers the $400 Samsung Chromebook Plus, amongst different gadgets.
