This 12 months though we’re not reporting from Hawaii, Qualcomm’s Tech Summit continues to be occurring in digital kind, representing the corporate’s most necessary launch occasion of the 12 months because it showcases the brand new flagship merchandise that may energy subsequent 12 months’s smartphones. Qualcomm yesterday introduced the brand new Snapdragon 888 SoC and platform, and immediately we’re going in-depth into the specs and options of the brand new silicon design.
The Snapdragon 888 is an enormous leap for Qualcomm, a lot in order that they’ve veered off from their standard naming scheme increments this era and even skipped the 87x collection altogether. The 888 quantity is just not there just for advertising and marketing functions because it represents fortune and luck in Chinese, however the brand new SoC has some substantial generational modifications that units it aside from the same old yearly enhancements of previous.
Featuring the primary ever implementation of a Cortex-X1 CPU core as its efficiency engine, new Cortex-A78 cores for effectivity, a large +35% increase in GPU efficiency, a very new DSP/NPU IP redesigned from the bottom up, triple digital camera ISPs, built-in 5G modem, all manufactured on a brand new 5nm course of node, the brand new Snapdragon 888 touches and updates nearly each a part of the SoC design with vital uplifts in efficiency and capabilities. There is quite a bit to cowl, so let’s go over the small print piece by piece:
| Qualcomm Snapdragon Flagship SoCs 2020-2021 | |||
| SoC | Snapdragon 865 |
Snapdragon 888
|
|
| CPU | 1x Cortex-A77 @ 2.84GHz 1x512KB pL2 3x Cortex-A77 4x Cortex-A55 4MB sL3 |
1x Cortex-X1 @ 2.84GHz 1x1024KB pL2 3x Cortex-A78 4x Cortex-A55 4MB sL3 |
|
| GPU | Adreno 650 @ 587 MHz
|
Adreno 660 @ ?MHz
+35% perf |
|
| DSP / NPU | Hexagon 698
15 TOPS AI |
Hexagon 780
26 TOPS AI |
|
| Memory Controller |
4x 16-bit CH
@ 2133MHz LPDDR4X / 33.4GB/s 3MB system degree cache |
4x 16-bit CH
@ 3200MHz LPDDR5 / 51.2GB/s 3MB system degree cache |
|
| ISP/Camera | Dual 14-bit Spectra 480 ISP
1x 200MP or 64MP with ZSL 4K video & 64MP burst seize |
Triple 14-bit Spectra 580 ISP
1x 200MP or 84MP with ZSL 4K video & 64MP burst seize |
|
| Encode/ Decode |
8K30 / 4K120 10-bit H.265
Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG 720p960 infinite recording |
8K30 / 4K120 10-bit H.265
Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG 720p960 infinite recording |
|
| Integrated Modem | none (Paired with exterior X55 solely) (LTE Category 24/22) (5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave) |
X60 built-in
(LTE Category 24/22) (5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave) |
|
| Mfc. Process | TSMC 7nm (N7P) |
Samsung 5nm (5LPE) |
|
Re-integration of the 5G modem into the SoC
The most necessary side for this 12 months’s design is the truth that Qualcomm goes again to an absolutely built-in modem design, contrasting final 12 months’s stunning selection of the Snapdragon 865 not containing any modem in any respect and having as a substitute to depend on the exterior X55 modem.
Last 12 months’s rationale of going with an exterior modem was stated to have been a sensible one, stemming from the truth that 5G was nonetheless in its early levels and that many distributors needed to make a whole lot of design efforts when designing their new handsets for 5G. A exterior 5G modem such because the X55 helped the 5G transition because it was accessible to distributors sooner than the Snapdragon 865 SoC itself,…
