Qualcomm and Microsoft announced today at the Build 2023 developer conference that the next generation Oryon chip and future versions of Windows will no longer support 32-bit ARM applications, only 64-bit ARM applications.
Qualcomm and Microsoft are both actively promoting the 64-bit process, with the current Windows on ARM project advocating for developers to develop 64-bit applications, but still retaining support for 32-bit instruction sets and applications.
Microsoft has confirmed that the next generation of Windows (which should be called Win12) and future Qualcomm chips will drop support for Arm32 applications.
This will primarily affect older apps compiled for Windows 10 Mobile and not yet updated for Arm64 or x86 architectures, and theoretically most users will not be affected. After upgrading to a new system or device, if these apps are not updated, then they will not be available.
Qualcomm plans to launch the Oryon processor in 2024 and previously reported that Qualcomm will use its own architecture Nuvia in the SM8750 (Snapdragon 8 Gen 4) at the earliest, and the ARM dual-version cluster is 2+6 due to tightening ARM licensing.
