Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx 7nm Processor is Designed for Always-Connected PCs

Snapdragon 8cx

The first day of Qualcomm Tech Summit focused on 5G technology, the second day revealed details about Snapdragon 855 mobile processor, and the third and last day was about Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform, a 7nm processor specifically designed for always-on always-connected PCs that performs as well as some 15W processor(s) from Intel, but at much lower power consumption. Snapdragon 8cx specifications: CPU – 8x Qualcomm Kryo 495 64-bit cores (dual cluster) with a total of 10MB cache; 7nm Process Technology Visual Subsystem – Qualcomm Adreno 680 GPU with DX12 support, 128-bit memory interface Memory – LPDDR4x, 8 Channels Storage – NVME SSD, UFS3.0 Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence Engine Qualcomm Hexagon 685 DSP Qualcomm All-Ways Aware technology AI features 4th Generation Qualcomm AI Engine Enhanced voice assistant experiences for Alexa and Cortana with Qualcomm Aqstic technology Display Maximum On-Device Display Support: 4K Dual 4K external displays support Audio Qualcomm Aqstic audio technology […]

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Specifications Published

Snapdragon 855

Qualcomm Tech Summit 2018 started yesterday, and while the company mentioned Snapdragon 855, they focused on the benefit of 5G technology. Today is another day, and this time the company released details specifications about the new 5G mobile platform. Snapdragon 855 specifications: CPU – 8x Qualcomm Kryo 485 64-bit cores @ up to 2.84 GHz; 7nm Process Technology; based on leaks, tri-cluster configuration: 1+3+4 Visual Subsystem Adreno 640 GPU OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0 FP, Vulkan 1.1 API support HDR gaming Hardware-accelerated H.265 and VP9 decoder.  HDR Playback Codec support for HDR10+, HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision Volumetric VR video playback 8K 360 VR video playback Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence Engine Qualcomm Hexagon 690 Processor Qualcomm Hexagon Vector Accelerator Qualcomm Hexagon Tensor Accelerator Qualcomm Hexagon Voice Assistant Qualcomm All-Ways Aware Hub Qualcomm Adreno 640 GPU Qualcomm Kryo 485 CPU System Memory – 4×16-bit, LPDDR4x, up to 16GB @ 2133 MHz Display […]

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 is the First 5G Mobile Processor

5G qualcomm reference design

Most (all?) CNX Software readers already know 5G cellular technology is coming soon, and companies have already announced 5G modems such as Samsung Exynos 5100, MediaTek M70 or Snapdragon X50, some 5G picocells, but AFAIK, so far nobody had officially unveiled 5G mobile processor. Qualcomm has finally announced their Snapdragon 855 5G mobile processor platform codenamed SDM8150, also delivering 3 times improvement for artificial intelligence workloads thanks to its 4th generation AI engine. As usual, Qualcomm has not provided the full details about the processor during the first announcement, but they just listed some highlights: 4G and 5G connectivity with  sub-6 GHz and mmWave support 4th Gen AI engine with 3x performance improvement Improved photography and video via Computer Vision ISP, true 4K HDR video capture Ultrasonic fingerprint support Process – 7nm That’s it, so we have to rely on leaks and benchmarks found around the web to get some […]

Intrinsyc Open-Q 605 SBC is Powered by Qualcomm QCS605 IoT Processor

Qualcomm QCS605 Development Board

Qualcomm QCS603 / QCS605 “Internet of Things” processors were announced last spring as the first “Qualcomm Vision Intelligence Platforms” from the company and designed for artificial intelligence and computer vision applications. Both SoCs are octa-core processor with two performance Kryo 300 Gold cores, and six efficiency Kryo 300 Silver cores, but QCS605’s big cores are clocked at a higher 2.5 GHz frequency, and the processor comes with better 802.11ac Wave2 WiFi, support for up to 32MB camera, and 4K video capture. However so far, there was no development platform publicly available, and this has just changed with Intrinsyc announcing Open-Q 605 single board computer (SBC) and development kit featuring Qualcomm QCS605 vision intelligence platform. Open-Q™ 605 SBC Specifications SoC – Qualcomm QCS605 octa-core processor with 2x high-performance Kryo 300 Gold cores up to 2.5 GHz, 6x low-power Kryo 300 Silver cores up to 1.7 GHz, Hexagon 685 DSP with Hexagon vector […]

Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 Cortex-A76 based Processor Targets High-Tier Mid-Range Smartphones

Snapdragon 675

Last August, Qualcomm unveiled Snapdragon 670 processor with performance and efficiency Kryo 360 cores believed to be based on Cortex-A75 and Cortex-A55 cores, but the company has just announced an update with Snapdragon 675 mobile platform powered by Kryo 460 cores which are based on Arm Cortex-A76  according to Anandtech, and so far, Cortex-A76 was only found in “premium” processors such as HiSilicon Kirin 980. Beside the upgrade cores, the company also claims the processor brings “outstanding gaming, a leap in artificial intelligence (AI) capability and a cutting-edge camera”. Snapdragon 675 main specifications: CPU 2x Kryo 460 (Cortex-A76 based) @ 2.0GHz with 256KB L2 6x Kryo 460 (Cortex-A55 based) @ 1.8GHz with 64KB L2 GPU – Adreno 612 DSP – Hexagon 685, Qualcomm AI Engine Display – Support for FHD+ display Camera – Spectra 250L ISP with triple-camera support Audio – Qualcomm aptX and Aqstic Modem – Snapdragon X12 LTE […]

Qualcomm QCA64x8 and QCA64x1 802.11ay WiFi Chipsets Deliver 10 Gbps Bandwidth

802.11ay, 802.11ad

WiFi has evolved in recent years with the introduction of 802.11ad and 802.11ax (now called WiFi 6). THe latter is now official, and in the last year several 802.11ax chipsets and WiFi 6 routers have been announced, but I’ve not heard much about 802.11ad with claims of up to 7Gbps bandwidth at 60 GHz when unveiled in 2016. The latter have been supplanted by 802.11ay, with Qualcomm having just unveiled QCA64x8 and QCA64x1 802.11ay chipsets capable of delivering 10Gbps and operating at a frequency of 60 GHz. According to Wikipedia, 802.11ay is not really a new standard, but just an evolution of 802.11ad  adding four times the bandwidth and up to 4 MIMO streams. Qualcomm chipsets will enable 10+ Gps speeds with wire-equivalent latency, while keeping the power consumption low, and bring the ability to play 4K UltraHD videos over WiFi, virtual / augmented reality games, fixed wireless mesh backhaul, […]

Snapdragon Wear 3100 Smartwatch Platform to Deliver Longer Battery Life

Qualcomm Wear 3100 Block Diagram

Qualcomm introduced Snapdragon Wear 2100 in 2016 for wearables, and the processor ended up in several products such as LG Watch Style / Sport smartwatch. Since then the company released other Wear platform for specific applications such as 4G kid watches with Snapdragon Wear 2500, or wearable IoT applications with Snapdragon Wear 1250 offering NB-IoT and eMTC connectivity. The company has now announced Snapdragon Wear 3100 “smartwatch platform” still based on four Arm Cortex A7 cores, but also including a new ultra-low power co-processor to further extend battery life. Snapdragon Wear 3100 “MSM8909w” or “APQ8009w” specifications: CPU – Quad core Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ up to 1.2 GHz GPU – Qualcomm Adreno 304 GPU Co-processor – QCC1110 Display – Up to 640×480 at 60fps via MIPI and/or SPI interfaces Cellular Qualcomm Snapdragon X5 LTE modem with peak download speed of 1 Gbps, and peak upload speed of 150 Mbps RF […]

Snapdragon 670 Launched with Better Performance and Camera Capabilities, Artificial Intelligence Tech

Snapdragon 670

Qualcomm has just introduced another of their “Mobile Platforms” with Snapdragon 670. The chipset comes with eight Kryo 360 cores, a Snapdragon X12 LTE modem for download speeds up to 600 Mbps,  as well as Qualcomm AI engine and  Hexagon 685 DSP for accelerating artificial intelligence workloads. The Qualcomm Spectra 250 ISP found in the SoC is said to enable most of the premium camera features found in professional cameras including noise reduction, image stabilization, and active depth sensing. Snapdragon 670 specifications: CPU – Octa-core processor with a cluster of 2x Kryo 360 performance cores @ up to 2.0 GHz, and a cluster of 6x Kryo 360 efficiency cores @ up to 1.7 GHz Visual Processing System (aka GPU) – Adreno 615 GPU with support for Open GL ES 3.2, Open CL 2.0, Vulkan, DirectX 12, H.264/H.265/VP9 Ultra HD video playback, DisplayPort over USB Type-C DSP – Hexagon 685 DSP […]