Qualcomm

Qualcomm Incorporated is a major fabless semiconductor manufacturer, famous for its Snapdragon line of System-on-Chips (SoC) targeted towards mobile phones, tablets, laptops among other types of devices. It also manufactures other components of mobile devices and telecommunication hardware including cellular modems, WiFi/Bluetooth chips and power management ICs.

Qualcomm

File:Qualcomm-Logo.png

Basic information
Founded	1985-07
Legal Structure	Public
Industry	Semiconductors, Computer hardware, Telecommunications
Also known as
Official website	https://www.qualcomm.com/

Consumer-impact summary

• User Freedom: Known for implementing measures against software modifications in mobile devices utilizing their processors.
• Market Control: Dominates in high-end mobile chips with indirect competition from Apple and Samsung. Higher competition with MediaTek in the medium to low-end mobile market, and with Intel, Broadcom and MediaTek in WiFi/Bluetooth chips. Competes with Apple, Intel and AMD in energy-efficient laptop processors.

Controversial Practices

Restrictions on software modifications

Qualcomm employs mechanisms in their Snapdragon SoCs that prevent users from running their own code or modifying firmware or operating system code on their devices. Such mechanisms include Secure Boot where each boot stage authorizes the next stage establishing a "chain of trust". On power-on, the SoC executes the Primary Boot Loader (PBL), stored in immutable read-only memory (ROM) etched in the silicon die making it physically impossible to modify. PBL loads and authorizes the eXtended Boot Loader (XBL), which in turn loads and authorizes the next stage which can be another bootloader or the operating system, all of which are stored in rewritable flash memory. The SoC contains a set of one-time programmable (OTP) electronic fuses within the SoC, which store cryptographic signing keys along with other parameters such as enabling Secure Boot and debugging flags. The signing keys are generated by Qualcomm and the device OEM and are used by the various boot stages to verify images loaded from flash memory. The keys are not provided to the end user, preventing any modifications to the software images. A technical paper by Qualcomm details the Secure Boot mechanism and clarifies the entities allowed to authorize software running on the end device: Template:Quote box The device OEM is set as the "device custodian" which controls the software that may run on the device. Further text describes other entities that may have a hand in authorizing software: Template:Quote box Several entities are listed as being stakeholders in the final product, while no mention of the end user is made.