Doug S (foo.delete@this.bar.bar) on March 2, 2019 11:54 pm wrote:
> Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on March 2, 2019 4:06 pm wrote:
> > Doug S (foo.delete@this.bar.bar) on March 2, 2019 3:53 pm wrote:
> > > anon (spam.delete.delete.delete@this.this.this.spam.com) on March 2, 2019 9:09 am wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Back to the original question:
> > > > Qualcomm makes exactly 0$ on ARM's A7x cores in Samsung's Exynos SoCs.
> > > > Qualcomm makes exactly 0$ on Samsung's Mx cores in Samsung's Exynos SoCs.
> > > > Doug S said this switch cost Qualcomm money.
> > > > He also said this switch does not cost ARM anything.
> > > >
> > > > How does that work?
> > > > I quote "The savings Samsung gets from their Exynos cores come at Qualcomm's expense, not ARM's."
> > > > How? Qualcomm is not paying them anything nor are they losing out on any revenue since that was already 0.
> > >
> > >
> > > The modems.
> > >
> > > Qualcomm charges royalties based on the phone's cost (this is what Apple is fighting over) but when
> > > Samsung uses Exynos they don't have to pay Qualcomm royalties on the phone's cost. They own enough
> > > cellular patents they may have a cross license agreement with Qualcomm and pay $0, but even if they
> > > pay something they pay far less to Qualcomm than they do when they use a Qualcomm SoC.
> >
> > You didn't read what anon said, do you?
> >
>
>
> I think you didn't read, or didn't understand, what I wrote. I thought it was pretty
> clear. For every Exynos SoC Samsung ships in a phone, Qualcomm makes less money because
> they don't get to sell them a Qualcomm SoC, and charge based on a percentage of the phone's
> sale price for their patents because of the deal they make licensees sign.
>
> This has nothing to do with the ARM cores in the Exynos or Snapdragon, it has to do with the modems.
>
> He quoted me as saying "The savings Samsung gets from their Exynos cores", which
> if that is what I typed I mistyped, and should have said "Exynos SoCs".

O.k.
So, you didn't say that Qualcomm is at disadvantage, because Exynos contains Mustang instead of A7x.
But you did bring Qualcomm into discussion in totally illogical manner.

You said: "Companies take out an architectural license for one of two reasons [...] or two, to save on other IP licensing costs. This is IMHO the reason Samsung does it, because they don't have to pay the Qualcomm tax on their phones containing Exynos SoCs".
And you didn't answer to anon's question how exactly Exynos with Mustang is different from Exynos with A7x w.r.t. Qualcomm patents.

Personally, I think that the main reason for existence of Mustang is not savings, but one or several control freaks in Samsung top management. For the same reason they developed in-house GPU.
But their in-house GPU remains in stealth mode while Mustang ships in huge quantities. Which probably means that *after* we subtract money spent on development of Mustang, because it's spent anyway, Exynos with Mustang does cost to Samsung less than Exynos with A7x. Which indirectly suggests that A7x licensing is more expensive than Mali licensing.