SemiAccurate is quite amused about a ‘leaked Qualcomm roadmap’ featuring the code name Taipan. The main problem is that the purported roadmap is dead wrong because the Taipan core was cancelled a long time ago.

If you recall our story from last Wednesday about the name of the 64-bit post-Krait core, we said something curious. Notice we said, “Rather than just out the name of post-Krait, we will out the name of the one after that instead.” and, “That said the one after the one after Krait is Qualcomm’s first internal 64-bit ARM core that you will see in a device.”, very odd phrasing don’t you think? There is a good reason for that odd phrasing, we actually have a clue about what Qualcomm is really doing.

SemiAccurate has long been aware of the code name Taipan and also has been aware that that core was cancelled quite a while ago. How long ago? Well notice that the roadmap from Leaksfly on Twitter here, does not have the Snapdragon 810 and 808 on them, the SoCs that were supposed to be the outing of the Taipan core. Taipan was shelved long enough ago to redo those SoCs with the tried and true A53/A57 combo. For the non-chip engineers out there that means it was well over a year ago, Taipan is long dead.

That means two things, first all these sites that are claiming to have exclusive info about Taipan are all dead wrong. Taipan really is dead and won’t be coming back, whoever posted that ‘roadmap’ obviously didn’t have any real sources. Neither did all the sites that parroted back the wrong info, they either didn’t bother to verify the ‘leak’ with anyone or more likely had no ability to verify it whatsoever. Since this is teh Intarw3bs and information is true because someone posted it, it spread like wildfire and became ‘true’ even though it is unquestionably not.

You may have noticed that we posted the name of the core after Taipan almost a week ago, or as we put it at the time, “the one after the one after Krait”. That is the first new core from Qualcomm post-Krait that both survived and will come out, Taipan is long gone. For the pedantic this core we named is the one that the roadmap refers to as TS1/TS2 and variations thereof.

For the record, Taipan was a 32-bit core so please laugh at the sites who claim otherwise, we don’t have the time to personally address each and every one. It also was not a 14nm core as some have made up, I mean ‘reported’, anyone with a clue about timing would realize that. Sadly that means the majority of sites are also ‘reporting’ this as true too.

To summarize the news, Taipan = long dead, Taipan = 32-bit, Taipan != 14nm/FinFET, sites = no sources, sites = no verification, and idiots abound on the net as the vast echo chamber of wrong cranks up to full volume. SemiAccurate’s subscribers actually know the name of the 64-bit core that will be coming out in due time. But one question remains, why did Taipan die? Funny you should ask that…

Note: The following is for professional and student level subscribers.

Disclosures: Charlie Demerjian and Stone Arch Networking Services, Inc. have no consulting relationships, investment relationships, or hold any investment positions with any of the companies mentioned in this report.