Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, processor of premium smartphones of 2022
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On Tuesday, November 30th, Qualcomm announced its new premium chipset for mobile devices: the Snapdragon 8 Gen1, during one of the conferences of the event Snapdragon Tech Summit, focused on the main innovations of the San Diego company.
For this coverage, the showmetech is following the presentations directly from Hawaii, at the invitation of Qualcomm.
Nomenclature changes
After a few years Qualcomm decided it was time to bring some freshness to their line of mobile processors/platforms. According to the company: "A new era of premium mobile technologies deserves a better name." With this, what many speculated to be the new Snapdragon 898 will actually be called the Snapdragon 8 Gen1.
The reformulation takes place due to the advancement and consolidation of new technologies in the market, such as 5G, more professional cameras, smarter virtual assistants, cutting-edge gamer features, etc.
Inside Qualcomm's top-of-the-line chip
O Snapdragon 8 Gen1 is an SoC (System on a Chip)), that is, a chip that has a CPU and GPU integrated in the same part, so to speak, with a manufacturing process (lithography) of 4 nm and better integration to 5G networks thanks to the new Modem X65. The platform has Kryo 730 processor 3.0 Ghz octa-core with Cortex-X2, based on ARM v9 architecture and integrated graphics Adreno 730.
“As the world's most advanced mobile platform, Snapdragon is synonymous with premium Android experiences and the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 sets the standard for the next generation of high-end mobile devices […] It delivers connectivity, photography, gaming, AI, sound, and secure experiences never before available on a smartphone.”
Alex Katouzian, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Mobility, Computing and Infrastructure at Qualcomm
Artificial Intelligence
One of the great developments in the production of faster and faster processors is Artificial Intelligence, and with the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 this could not be otherwise. Qualcomm's new mobile platform is powered by the 7th Generation Qualcomm AI Engine and the processor Qualcomm Hexagon, integrated with 2x more memory sharing and integrated circuits.
For this release, a new processing language was developed by hugging face to become even smarter in order to analyze and adapt to user notifications. In addition, there is a voice recognition technology in partnership with Sonde health to analyze our voice and identify possible symptoms of diseases such as asthma, depression and COVID-19. All this is also done with the 3rd Generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub to reduce energy consumption.
In addition, the event revealed a partnership between Qualcomm and Google to create new technologies related to Artificial Intelligence. In this case, the union represents the joining of research on neutral architecture for the Connected Intelligent Edge using Google Cloud Vertex AI Neural Architecture Search (NAS).
“The ability to leverage Google NAS technology to create and optimize new AI models in a condensed time frame is a game changer for our business”
Ziad Asghar, Vice President of Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies
photography resources
As always cameras are one of the most sought after parts of any mobile device, and Qualcomm is well aware of that. Like New Snapdragon 8 Gen1 there was the announcement of Snapdragon Sight, that is, a new brand for the company's cameras. With this there is the addition of first 18-bit ISP (Image Signal Processor, or image signal processor) for smartphones, allowing it to capture approximately 4000x more information about dynamic range, color and sharpness at a speed of up to 3,2 gigapixels per second. Basically this means taking pictures will be faster, more accurate and will have better quality in the final image.
The platform will also be the first to incorporate recording of 8K videos with HDR10+. In images this means that each frame of the image will be about 33 MP. There will be improvements in brighter night photography mode; and will use intelligent filters via AI, through a partnership with Leica Letiz Look Filters, to recreate, for example, the Bokeh effect, or simply optimize images to correct natural defects. the chip 8 January 1 It will still have four more separate IPSs so that the cameras always act to save energy from smartphones.
To prove this, the event held the first live broadcast made in 8K resolution with HDR on a smartphone over the 5G network in partnership with Verizon. The feat is also possible since the new chip can face up to 3.5 Gb of upload.
game performance
For gamers, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 seems to be the ideal choice for every premium gamer smartphone, and by the way, the brand has also partnered with ESL, the largest eSports company in the world. Even Qualcomm talks about delivering a “desktop standard” when it comes to performance. This is because there are about 50 resources in the Snapdragon Elite Gaming inserted into the new mobile platform, that is, a kind of items developed specifically to enhance users' gaming experience.
In practice this reflects as smoother screen responsiveness standards, more vibrant colors with HDR and high level graphics details. The new GPU Adreno that comes with the chip has a boost of about 30% in rendering and up to 25% in energy savings with the Adreno Frame Motion Engine, capable of boosting the number of frames per second while maintaining energy autonomy. That way the player will have more performance and a smartphone with good battery. The company also reports that GPU gains can reach up to 60% using the Vulkan API.
Other features of the GPU and the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 include the addition of Variable Rate Shading Pro, which allows more control for developers to work on their games; and implementations of more realistic and optimized fog, smoke and particle effects to make games even more beautiful for the end consumer.
Connectivity
O Snapdragon 8 Gen1 is equipped with modern X65 5G Modem-RF system, making this chip the most powerful when it comes to mobile platforms with 5G, and the first to reach the download speed mark of 10 Gigabit thanks to the new 5G standard of 2ª Generation. In addition, the model also has the system Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Mobile Connectivity to support the networks WiFi 6E with speeds of up to 3.6 Gbps.
According to Qualcomm, all these innovations in terms of connectivity have made the user experience more fluid, ideal for downloading, streaming games, and even establishing a better connection with other technologies.
Audio
The company has also been working to improve integration with the Bluetooth 5.2 and audio quality with the Snapdragon Sound Technology, with lossless compression codecs (lossless audio), that is, if we are listening to a song, the sound we will hear will not have quality losses, being identical to the original recording. Qualcomm, with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, will be the first company to stream audio via bluetooth without audio loss.
Availability
Facing big people, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is expected to reach the main high-end devices, such as the next line Samsung Galaxy in January 2022. As speculated, the event confirmed that the Xiaomi 12 family of smartphones will be the first to receive the chip next year. Below you can see some brands that will receive the component on their devices:
- Black Shark
- Honor
- iQOO
- Motorola
- nubian
- OnePlus
- OPPO
- Realme
- Redmi
- SHARP
- Sony Corporation
- live
- Xiaomi
- ZTE
- Samsung
- ASUS
- HTC
- Meizu
Under development…
Technical specifications
| CPU | Kryo 730 Up to 3.0Ghz with ARM Cortex X2 64-bit architecture |
| GPU | Adreno 730 Vulkan 1.1 support HDR gaming volumetric rendering Adreno Frame Motion Engine OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0 HDR10+, HDR10 and Dolby Vision H.265 Hardware Acceleration and VP9 Decoder |
| NPU | Qualcomm Hexagon Qualcomm Sensing Hub Shared memory between audio and video processors, connections and other sensors |
| Camera | Qualcomm Spectra Image Signal Processor Three 18-bit ISPs Up to 3.2 Gigapixels Up to 36 MP in Triple Camera at 30 FPS Up to 64+36 MP dual camera at 30 FPS Up to 108 MP single camera at 30 FPS Recording up to 8K @ 30 FPS with HDR HEIC and HEVC decoder HDR10+, HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision 4K recording up to 120 FPS |
| Lithography | 4 nm |
| Modem | Snapdragon X65 5 Modem-RF System up to 10 Gbps 5G PowerSave 2.0 Smart Transmit 2.0 Technology 5G Multi-SIM Dynamic Spectrum Sharing Wideband Envelope Tracking AI-Enhanced Signal Boost |
| Adjustable | WiFi 6E, WiFi 6 (802.11ax), Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac), 802.11a/b/g/n Bandwidth of 20/40/80/160MHz MU-MMO 4K QAM WPA3- Enterprise Security Bluetooth 5.2, Bluetooth LE, aptX; NFC; USB 3.1 and USB-C |
| Geolocation | GPS, Glanass, Beidou, Galileo QZSS, NavlC dual frequency GNSS |
| Availability |
See also other features
So, what did you think of the launch of the Snapdragon 8 Gen1? Enjoy and discover the Snapdragon Phone, the ultimate experience for fans of the brand.
Source: Qualcomm
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