Qualcomm’s custom CPU for PCs is called Oryon

The mobile ones will keep the Kryo name

Alongside the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the company also announced its name for its PC Arm Cores, it’s called Oryon (with a “y” not an “I”). It follows the same tradition as with Qualcomm’s custom mobile Arm CPU cores called Kryo.

This was announced during the Snapdragon Technology Summit 2022 event. These chipsets are basically the company’s answer to Apple’s M-series of chipsets found on several MacBook, Macs, and even some iPad models. The company did not state more details, which can be slightly concerning, since these are high-end. However, we expect more of the Oryon CPUs in the upcoming months.

Qualcomm has longed to compete against Apple for a long time now, even acquiring Nuvia, not to be confused with ZTE’s Nubia phones, for USD 1.4 billion. They are a firm based in Santa Clara, California, USA. This is the company responsible for these custom PC Arm architecture, so it was no surprise why Qualcomm got interested with them.

Currently, Qualcomm’s CPUs are based off Arm’s blueprints hence the reason why you see Cortex CPUs on almost all Snapdragon chips available. However these are customized to fit Qualcomm’s standards, and thus giving birth to the Kryo custom cores.

Custom cores is what makes Qualcomm stand out from the rest and not only does it make a foothold against Apple but also against Intel and AMD, the duopoly holding the PC semiconductor space. This also allows Qualcomm to have the liberties it needs to further improve their chipsets. However in doing so, Snapdragon chips are sold to manufacturers at a more expensive price than MediaTek for example.

What did Qualcomm announce however is that the Oryon chips would be sampled to OEMs starting in the first quarter of 2023. The company said that these chipsets are available to devices starting in the second half of 2023, and later pushed back to 2024. Qualcomm has invested so much in Oryon, so we’re expecting top-notch performance, at least in par with Apple’s M series which they desire to compete against.

Source: XDA Developers