Qualcomm claims its optimisations help Android handsets compete with Apple's Iphone

CHIP DESIGNER Qualcomm believes that optimising the mobile web browsing experience is vital for Android handset makers to compete against Apple.

Earlier this month Qualcomm released Vellamo, a benchmarking tool that aims to show how good an Android smartphone is at web browsing related tasks. Sy Choudhury, director of product management at Qualcomm claimed that web browsing is one of the most important use cases on smartphones. In an interview with The INQUIRER, Choudhury said that device makers are looking to chip designers such as Qualcomm to optimise Javascript, Canvas and Adobe Flash performance in order to compete with Apple's Iphone.

Surprisingly, Choudhury was full of praise for Apple, saying that there are few companies aside from Apple and Qualcomm that do the level of optimisation that is needed to deliver "a best in class web browsing experience". Choudhury said, "Many of our OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] are struggling with optimisation." He added, "It is hard to compete with Apple, which is vertically integrated," meaning that it has control of all parts of the device from the hardware to the software.

Choudhury claimed that Qualcomm's expertise of Javascript virtual machine development on the ARM architecture means that few other firms can compete with it in the area of Javascript optimisation. However Javascript isn't the only area where Qualcomm is optimising, with Choudhury saying that HTML5's Canvas is also a key area where it has done optimisation.

Given that smartphone and tablet gaming has taken off, it seemed odd that Qualcomm released a web browsing benchmark, but according to Choudhury causal gaming on mobile devices will follow a similar path to that on PCs. Chowdhury said, "More and more games are using Canvas," and that while in-app gaming will have its place, "casual gamers will still game within the web browser".

Since Qualcomm released Vellamo, those acquainted with the world of computer benchmarks could claim that it favours Qualcomm's own chips, but Choudhury argued that is not the case. Surprisingly, Choudhury was open in admitting, "We are not going to win all the tests all of the time but that Vellamo will keep companies honest."

Referring to any accusations of bias, Choudhury said, "All the code in Vellamo is nothing specific to Qualcomm" and those firms that accuse Qualcomm of producing a biased benchmark "simply lack the team to understand what happens under the hood". Choudhury added that only Apple and Google had the expertise to compete, saying that Google's Android developers are happy with Vellamo.

Choudhury said that device makers are already using Vellamo to test how well their own optimisations fare. He said that Qualcomm's plan is to update Vellamo every six to eight months. He also said that Qualcomm had received 30,000 completed Vellamo benchmark results submitted to its servers within five days.

Qualcomm is trying to be more than just a chip vendor to smartphone and tablet makers in order to stand out from rivals like Broadcom, Samsung and Texas Instruments. And if Choudhury's claim that Qualcomm's optimisations can lead to a 70 per cent improvement in Javascript performance over the generic Android 2.3 Gingerbread, then that could certainly relieve the pressure on its chip design division to push the ever tightening power envelope. µ