Google doesn't have nearly the same leverage and volume numbers to use against Qualcomm as Apple does, but even for Apple it's a devil's bargain. The licensing terms are incredibly onerous. If they updated them and you didn't agree, they used to just cut off your entire company's chip supply until that was ruled monopolistic and illegal. The royalties (one of the only royalties Apple actually pays) are substantial percentages of the final device price. Getting into bed with Qualcomm needs to be weighed against the risk to the rest of your business.
As a consumer, I buy Qualcomm modem phones, but as an engineer Qualcomm is only marginally below the plague on my avoidance list.
I heavily doubt that Qualcomm is even capable of working in such a role. In fact, the C-suite probably believes that their core competency is lawsuits and not modems, anyway.
[0] https://twitter.com/calebccff/status/1472517091970494465
(Edit: I meant semi-custom SoC design/architecture not cores, like https://www.anandtech.com/show/7281/understanding-amd-semi-c... )
Yes, the early generations of Snapdragon SoCs were built using a custom ARMv7 core called Scorpion, which was later succeeded by another v7 core called Krait. The first ARMv8 SoC (the infamously disastrous Snapdragon 810) used stock ARM cores, but the next generation (820) switched to an in-house v8 design called Kryo. Around that time though, the company did massive layoffs, including in silicon engineering, leading to all the subsequent designs using tweaked ARM cores (despite also being called Kryo)
It's not 1 of capability. They're trying to force everyone to use the full SoC and not just the modem.
Would you mind elaborating on this point?
It's just a shame, even now I find myself eyeing the black Friday sales prices. I loved everything else about the phone, but I know that the battery life is going to drive me mad and with all the heat and increased number of charge cycles there's just no way the battery is going to last as long as the support does and that's a deal breaker for me.