The processor, it is a chipset, it is a chip, it is a platform, it is a system on a chip or what to pay attention to when choosing

"Any sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic"

Arthur Clark

More than 24 thousand different devices, more than a thousand different manufacturers - a huge fragmentation - and this is only on Android ... How can you choose what you need in such a sea of ​​options?

In the picture above - one rectangle corresponds to one smartphone model, the larger the area, the greater the number on the networks of mobile operators in the world. Image source: here .

Choosing a smartphone has become more difficult than ever. Ten years ago, the design of smartphones had a much greater significance; each new device was unique in appearance - google, look, for example, how the Nokia N-series “multimedia computers» looked! ( For example ). These were real works of engineering. And first of all, the design helped to make a choice. Now is another matter: all smartphones are touch-sensitive, almost without buttons, without moving parts, rectangular, it's not easy to distinguish straight off.

The engineer’s imagination is different now. The small parallelepiped in his hand was apparently the most closely stocked collection of patents. Back in 2012, “in the field of smartphone manufacturing technologies, about 250,000 patents belong to different companies around the world. It’s hard to say how many of them can relate to one single mobile device, however, on average, a modern communicator harbors about 110,000 patents. ”

Source of the picture .

Obviously, the patents used will only become larger. The fields of patents used are constantly expanding: first and foremost, wireless technologies and computer science. Most of them are algorithms implemented in the chipset. A modern smartphone chipset is the main component that determines the capabilities of the device, its distinctive characteristics, the very chips, interesting deltas.

The processor, the mobile processor, the system on a chip (SoC), the chip, the chipset, the VLSI, the platform are similar terms that are widely used, we will not delve into the differences now: who likes what more, who is used to saying, let it be.

The main thing that I would like the author to emphasize in this article is that the chipset used is an extremely important factor that it makes sense to pay attention when choosing your new smartphone. Mentioned above hundreds of thousands of patents are primarily implemented in it.

Most advanced chips are truly an engineering miracle. Think about it: a billion transistors in a silicon square sized, for example, 14 * 14mm! The author in his childhood was engaged in a radio circle, and then about the same size there was one transistor - it looked like a small button with three legs - such is the miniaturization for 30 years. Now, in the production of flagship chipsets, 10 nm technology is already used, which means that one transistor is 2500 times thinner than a human hair.

The computing system of a modern chipset is heterogeneous, i.e. distributed, heterogeneous, different types of tasks are distributed among several specialized processor subsystems (CPU, GPU, ISP, DSP, DPU, VPU, NPU), cellular modem and memory integrated into the chipset.

Each of the components of the chipset deserves a separate discussion. For example, it depends on what standards of cellular communication it can work, what functionality it supports, depending on which modem is in the chipset of your smartphone. As an example, I propose to look here . In this article we’ll talk a little more about the CPU, or rather only about the frequently discussed topic of cores, and then we’ll go on to the recommendations for choosing a chipset.

A few words about the number of cores. We often hear in the cellular salon that the more the better. This is certainly not the case. Here are just a few considerations:

- To begin with, speaking of the core, we must understand that we are talking about one of the parts of the system on a chip - namely, the central processor (CPU). The CPU deals with the general management of the chipset and applications from 3 sides.

- The law of Amdal has not been canceled. Amdahl's Law (sometimes Amdahl-Ware Law) illustrates the limitation of the productivity of a computing system with an increase in the number of calculators. Gene Amdal formulated the law in 1967, finding a simple but essentially insurmountable content restriction on productivity growth in parallelizing calculations: “In the case where a task is divided into several parts, the total time for its execution on a parallel system cannot be less than the execution time itself long fragment.

- While in programs for smartphones there is little parallelism. The main specificity of the smartphone is the work in the interrupt mode. In sleep mode, the kernels are involved with minimal power consumption.

- More cores - more power consumption, and this is one of the most critical parameters for a smartphone.

- Until recently, in all iPhones there were only 2 CPU cores, in the iPad - 3 CPU cores. This number of cores was quite enough for the premium segment. What to say about the average or budget options.

- Another thought - those vendors who make more cores are not able to accommodate something else. The physical size of the chipset has limitations.

- The coolest flagship processors for smartphones today are Octacors, i.e. Eight-core CPUs - no longer needed.

- In general, just a race for a large number of cores in smartphones is meaningless (except for marketing purposes, but that's another story). Balance is important, it is important how the specialized tasks are distributed between the subsystems. Sooner or later, nuclear madness will subside.

- Another topic is the CPU clock speed. Now the maximum frequency of the flagships reaches 2.45 GHz and is needed for short-term high loads (for example, when processing 4Q30 video, when transmitting data over LTE network at speeds up to 1 Gbit / s) or for benchmarking tasks (requires a separate article, therefore we’ll omit "for clarity" ).

So which chips are worth paying attention to? Below is a summary table. Qualcomm processors are in all price segments. This is a clear leader. The company's modem chips (i.e., without the AP - application processor) are also used in the iPhone. For the rest of the manufacturers, the picture is not unequivocal, something works out better, something else needs to be worked on.

Where to find out which chipset formed the basis of the gadget that you liked externally, is suitable for the price, and the brand is cute? On the sites of mobile operators (exactly at MegaFon and MTS), there is a processor type as one of the filters. Still, the operators understand that the quality of the modem of the smartphone significantly affects the user experience of the subscriber (breaks, work on the border of the cell, speech intelligibility, speed of the mobile Internet, etc.) and even their capital costs. As a rule, the type of processor can be found in the list of specifications of the smartphone on the manufacturer’s website, on a Yandex-type aggregator, but gsmarena.com can be recommended again for true fans of mobile technologies. And finally, every year a new generation of chipsets is released, so besides the processor manufacturer, its level, pay attention to the year / month of the start of production of the chipset and the smartphone. The newer the better, this is the most innovative industry!