We have been talking about ARM for a long time, some consider it to be the future, others an alternative … Be that as it may the reality is that so far no one can compete with Apple in ARM processors. The Cupertino giant has ridiculed Qualcomm, Samsung and Mediatek countless times.
Now Microsoft wants to compete in the world of processors and they are looking for workers in this area. As we have already indicated in the past, this processor could be linked to servers and not to Surface products, although this job offer leaves the door open.
Microsoft continues to work on its own processor
The job offer refers to a Director of SoC architecture for Surface devices. We already notice two clear differences compared to other offers of the past. In this case it seems to be something for Surface and, it does not refer to ARM. This is the text of the offer:
We are looking for a Director of SoC Architecture to lead our definition of SoC technologies. This exciting opportunity requires strong technical knowledge and exceptional leadership. Will drive the architecture together with partner Si organizations of multiple technologies, including but not limited to performance and energy efficiency, thermal management, battery life, security, manageability, memory and storage, process integration and packaging to deliver Exceptional product experiences across our entire portfolio of devices.
Working in collaboration with a diverse team of business, engineering and product design experts, you will define a multi-year technology roadmap and identify emerging technologies to innovate new product features and capabilities. Building internal and external partnerships to define and enable the SoC technology portfolio for future product generations.
This seems to indicate greater involvement in hardware by Microsoft beyond the occasional collaborations with AMD and Qualcomm. It doesn’t specifically target ARM or hardware manufacturing, but it seems to follow the rumor of the supposed ARM processor that Microsoft and AMD are working on.
In addition, we know that they do not work on an x86 processor since there are no licenses as with ARM. So either this is an offer to explore alternatives or it would be for the ARM processor.