Latest news with #Xilinx
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Qualcomm vs. AMD: Which Chipmaker Offers Stronger Growth in 2025?
Qualcomm Technologies Inc. QCOM and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD are premier chip manufacturing firms competing in the mobile, PC and data center markets, with a focus on AI (artificial intelligence) and advanced chip technologies. Qualcomm's offering includes high-performance, low-power chip designs for mobile devices, PCs, XR (Extended Reality), automotive, wearable, robotics, connectivity and AI use cases. The company boasts a comprehensive intellectual property portfolio comprising 3G, 4G, 5G and other Micro has strengthened its position in the semiconductor market, thanks to its evolution from a purebred consumer-PC chip provider to an enterprise-focused company. Its processors are primarily powered by the company's proprietary "Zen" CPU and "Vega" GPU architectures. The company's acquisition of Xilinx has helped in expanding into multiple embedded markets. AMD now offers Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), Adaptive SoCs and Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform (ACAP) products. With growing AI proliferation in PCs, smartphones, automotive and IoT applications, both Qualcomm and Advanced Micro are steadily advancing their semiconductor portfolio to bolster their competitive edge. Let us analyze in depth the competitive strengths and weaknesses of the companies to understand who is in a better position to maximize gains from the emerging market trends. Qualcomm is well-positioned to meet its long-term revenue targets driven by solid 5G traction, greater visibility and a diversified revenue stream. The company is increasingly focusing on the seamless transition from a wireless communications firm for the mobile industry to a connected processor company for the intelligent edge. The recent introduction of Qualcomm X85 5G Modem-RF, powered by Qualcomm's 5G AI Processor, has taken the market by storm by delivering one of the fastest, battery efficient and consistent 5G connectivity to Android users. The company is strengthening its foothold in the mobile chipsets market with innovative product launches. It had extended its Snapdragon G Series portfolio with the addition of next-generation gaming chipsets, Snapdragon G3 Gen 3, Snapdragon G2 Gen 2 and Snapdragon G1 Gen 2 chips. Qualcomm is also placing strong emphasis on developing advanced chipsets for the emerging market of AI PCs. The strategy is aimed at moving beyond the slowing smartphone industry, which is its primary breadwinner. The Snapdragon X chip for mid-range AI desktops and laptops is the fourth such product in the Snapdragon X processor line, following the successful launch of the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core, Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite efforts to ramp up its AI initiatives, Qualcomm has been facing tough competition from Intel Corporation INTC in the AI PC market. Shift in the share among original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) at the premium tier has reduced Qualcomm's near-term opportunity to sell integrated chipsets from the Snapdragon platform. The company is also facing stiff competition from Samsung's Exynos processors in the premium smartphone market, while MediaTek is gaining market share in the mid-range and budget smartphone market. Competition is also likely to come from formidable rivals like Broadcom and NVIDIA Corporation NVDA. Qualcomm's extensive operations in China are further likely to be significantly affected by the U.S.-China trade hostilities. AMD is strengthening its footprint in the AI market through an expanding portfolio. The latest MI300 series accelerator family boosts its competitive position in the generative AI space. The accelerator is based on AMD CDNA 3 accelerator architecture and supports up to 192 GB of HBM3 memory, enabling efficient running of large language model training (up to 80 billion parameters) and inference for generative AI workloads. It is also benefiting from strong enterprise adoption and expanded cloud addition, strength in 7-nanometer-based processors is expected to strengthen the company's competitive position in the commercial and server market against Intel. AMD is currently leveraging Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's 7 nm process technology, which is enabling it to deliver its advanced 7 nm chips faster to market. AMD Radeon RX 7900 series chiplet design combines 5 nm and 6 nm process nodes, each optimized for specific chips in the in the traditional computing market, which still generates a chunk of its revenues, AMD is up against Intel's strong market position. With Intel systems so well entrenched, there is an obvious preference for system integrators to choose Intel processors over AMD. Moreover, AMD faces significant competition from NVIDIA in the GPU market. AMD has had relatively greater success in the mobile segment, and its current product lineup indicates that this focus will continue. However, competition in the mobile segment is likely to accelerate, with more ARM-based devices coming on the market. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Qualcomm's 2025 sales and EPS implies year-over-year growth of 11.8% and 14.6%, respectively. The EPS estimates have been trending southward on average over the past 60 days. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Advanced Micro's 2025 sales suggests year-over-year growth of 23.1%, while that for EPS implies a rise of 18.4%. The EPS estimates have been trending southward over the past 60 days. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Over the past year, Qualcomm has declined 27.7% against the industry's growth of 12.5%. Advanced Micro has lost 21.5% over the same period. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Qualcomm looks more attractive than Advanced Micro from a valuation standpoint. Going by the price/earnings ratio, Qualcomm's shares currently trade at 12.95 forward earnings, significantly lower than 26.72 for Advanced Micro. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Qualcomm and Advanced Micro carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) each. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks companies expect their sales and profits to improve in 2025. Advanced Micro has shown steady revenue and EPS growth for years, while Qualcomm has been facing a bumpy road. With a better price performance and healthy long-term earnings growth expectations of 24.5%, Advanced Micro is relatively better placed than Qualcomm (long-term earnings growth expectations of 8.2%), although the former is a bit expensive in terms of valuation. Consequently, Advanced Micro seems to be a better investment option at the moment. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Intel Corporation (INTC) : Free Stock Analysis Report QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) : Free Stock Analysis Report Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) : Free Stock Analysis Report NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
02-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
From Mars To Retro Gaming: After 40 Years FPGAs Continue To Blaze A Trail
AMD is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Field Programmable Gate Array, or FPGA, today and the company is detailing some of the major milestones in development of the technology over the years. If you recall, AMD acquired Xilinx back in 2022 and has since maintained the company's leadership position in the space. The post on AMD's site covers the FPGA from the early days and its invention back in 1985, all the way up to today, where AMD FPGAs and adaptive SoCs (a modern evolution of the tech), are used in everything from the NASA's Mars rovers, to bleeding edge networking and communications systems, and autonomous vehicles. Let's start with a bit of background on what an FPGA actually does. Some might consider the FPGA somewhat of an unsung hero in the semiconductor market and it's important to understand what they've enabled in their 40-year history. An FPGA is a type of integrated circuit that can be continually reprogrammed in the field to perform different types of computing tasks. Unlike traditional chips that have fixed functionality, FPGAs are mostly comprised of an array of programmable logic blocks and interconnects, which allows them to be customized for a myriad of applications. FPGAs are currently used in virtually every major industry, from automotive, aerospace, and industrial automation, to consumer electronics, telecommunications, advanced research and development, and space exploration. FPGAs are well-suited for many emerging fields, where flexibility to tune algorithms and compute requirements are paramount. The Evolution Of FPGA Technology AMD The FPGA was invented by the late engineer, and Xilinx co-founder, Ross Freeman, in a effort to find a better, more cost-effective way to design chips. The first commercial FPGA to come from Xilinx was branded the XC2064. It featured 85,000 transistors, 64 configurable logic blocks and 58 I/O blocks. That's an absolutely miniscule device relative to some of AMD's most advanced modern FPGA-based devices, like the 138 billion transistor Versal Premium VP1902, which packs 18.5 million logic cells, 2,654 I/O blocks, and up to 6,864 DSP58 Engines, along with an array of memory, security and interfacing technologies. Nonetheless, the original XC2064 paved the way for a wide array of innovations and ultimately revolutionized how chips were made. AMD Versal Premium Board AMD In fact, FPGAs had a direct impact on my partner Dave's early career in the semiconductor industry. In a former life, Dave was a semiconductor sales engineer, and his customer Motorola worked with him on a design with Xilinx FPGAs to pioneer and engineer the first consumer broadband internet cable modems on the market. Dave notes that, 'Without FPGAs, engineering development times for an ASIC would have translated to years of simulation and R&D, and much higher risk, versus months due to the programmable, adaptable nature of the technology.' Motorola remains a key player in consumer broadband connectivity to this day. FPGAs effectively helped pioneer the "fabless" semiconductor model that is pervasive today. Engineers would fine tune and optimize their early designs using FPGAs, and once the design was considered complete and stable it would be used as the foundation for an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit). Though, that wouldn't always be the case – for many applications, sticking with an FPGA throughout a product's lifecycle was the ultimate solution. Even now, the leaders in EDA, Synopsys and Cadence, both feature Versal Premium VP1902 adaptive SoCs in their most advanced prototyping, emulation, and virtualization tools; I've written about them on a few occasions. An adaptive SoC, or system on a chip, is an advanced evolution of the FPGA that couples programmable gate arrays with dedicated processor cores, DSPs, IO, and other connectivity. Over the years, the integration of embedded memory and digital signal processors into FPGAs was crucial for early wireless infrastructure, and the designs have continually evolved since then to better address the needs of many industries. Mega65 PCB With AMD FPGA. As advanced as FPGAs have become, however, they're not just for today's fast-paced, bleeding-edge applications. They've also enabled an entire ecosystem for fans of retro computing, like me. Numerous projects exist today featuring AMD FPGAs, to emulate early computers and gaming systems. The Mega 65, for example, is a modern replica of the never released and ultra rare Commodore 65, though it obviously has far more capability than the original. There are also boards like the Arty-x7 family for do-it-yourselfers and hobbyists that want to experiment with FPGAs for their own designs. Moving forward, AMD's FPGAs and adaptive SoCs will continue to advance with more gates, increased processing power, and additional IO, and will address a wide array of applications. FPGAs will remain pervasive in everything from ADAS, to robotics, to healthcare imaging, emerging 6G wireless networks and – of course – AI. AMD's adaptive SoCs in particular, with their array of processing resources for diverse sensors and inputs, are ideal for self-contained AI applications at the edge, where data from cameras and various other sensors needs to be processed and acted upon with ultra-low latencies. In their 40-year history, FPGAs have enabled a multitude of innovations, and even today they show no signs of stopping.
