Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor improves artificial intelligence

Qualcomm on Tuesday announced the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, its flagship mobile system on a chip that will power the world’s best Android. phone And the Tablets for next year. The company has focused on adding features through the silicon that it says will bring “groundbreaking artificial intelligence” to multiple aspects of the mobile experience.

Support features include Snapdragon Smart, which boosts the chip’s AI performance, Snapdragon Sight for better object recognition, Snapdragon Elite Gaming, which adds support for hardware-accelerated ray tracing, Snapdragon Connect for AI-powered connectivity, and Snapdragon Sound for spatial and lossless audio. the support.

The first commercial devices are expected to hit the market before the end of the year.

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Qualcomm relies on a redesigned CPU along with updates to the GPU, Hexagon, and Sensung Hub to create new AI in its second-gen generation. One core core powered by Arm Cortex-X3 clocked at up to 3.2GHz, four performance cores up to 2.8GHz and three efficiency cores up to 2.0GHz. The 8 Generation 1By comparison, it had one primary core, three performance cores, and four efficiency cores. Qualcomm says this new arrangement delivers 40% more performance without affecting battery life.

(credit: Qualcomm)

The company has overhauled the Hexagon processor with an AI acceleration architecture combined with an updated Tensor accelerator, Vector Extensions, Scalar accelerator, and Direct Link. Combined with the new Sensing Hub, which has dual AI voice processors and always-on sensor camera support, the 8th generation achieves up to 4.35 times the AI ​​performance of the previous generation chip with a 60% increase in efficiency. This will also allow phone makers to bring more on-device natural language processing to their devices in a similar way to Google Tensor-powered. Pixel smartphones.

Snapdragon Sight really aims to boost the power of smartphone cameras. The Spectra ISP supports image sensors up to 200MP in various configurations as well as 8K video capture with 64MP stills, 8K60 playback, 10-bit color, AI-based autofocus, face recognition, and exposure. Qualcomm says these new features allow secure facial recognition for phone locks, with future devices able to calculate facial features, hair, eyes, skin, and more. What’s more, Qualcomm is working closely with image sensor makers Samsung and Sony to better integrate these features into future phone base cameras.

Entertainment abounds

Qualcomm says that the eighth generation of the second generation will bring new and richer entertainment experiences to mobile devices. For example, the revised GPU is 25% faster and supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing. This will be a boon on the mobile gaming front, as it provides more realistic lighting and shadow effects in games. The GPU also supports HDR 10, HDR 10+, Dolby Vision, 10-bit color, H.265 and V9 hardware decoding, as well as OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, and Vulkan 1.3. This will allow game developers to push boundaries and create more immersive worlds.

(credit: Qualcomm)

Display support range up to 4K displays at 60Hz or QHD+ displays at up to 144Hz. Most of today’s top phones have QHD+ displays with refresh rates up to 120Hz, but the 8th generation of the second generation will allow phone makers to greatly exceed those specs. The chip also supports sub-pixel rendering for OLED uniformity and OLED anti-aging compensation to reduce burn-in.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 pushes the boundaries of audio thanks to a new version of Snapdragon Sound. The revised audio enables 48 kHz lossless audio for streaming music, helping bridge the last mile between cell phones and wireless headphones. It also features spatial audio with dynamic head tracking for a complete surround sound experience. Qualcomm hasn’t forgotten about gamers, who will be able to take advantage of new low-lag gaming modes that reduce audio delay to 48ms.

High speed connections

Qualcomm claims that its new Snapdragon Connect platform is the “world’s most advanced 5G platform”. It requires every possible connection and adds a dose of AI to improve on-device performance across the board.

(credit: Qualcomm)

Snapdragon Connect is paired with Snapdragon X70 5G modem and RF system, which relies on artificial intelligence to balance 5G upload and download speeds with coverage, response time, and energy efficiency. Most importantly, it is the first to support dual SIM 5G, which means people can operate two 5G connections to a device simultaneously for personal and work numbers. Maximum download speeds can be up to 10Gbps via 5G, while upload speeds are up to 3.5Gbps. It supports 5G mmWave and sub-6GHz in standalone and non-standalone modes

Despite the fact that the Wi-Fi Alliance is not finished Wi-Fi 7 Specifications Qualcomm moves forward with Wi-Fi 7 with its Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 connectivity platform. The company says the 7800 delivers low-end Wi-Fi 7 performance with up to 5.8Gbps downloads. Other Wi-Fi features of the 7800 include 8×8 MIMO, 4K QAM, simultaneous dual band (2×2 and 2×2), as well as enterprise-grade WPA3 security.

Bluetooth support reaches version 5.3 with aptX Audio, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, and LE coding.

The chip includes almost all global positioning systems, such as GPS, Glonass, Galileo, QZSS, and NavIC. It has L1/L5 GPS dual band for better pedestrian tracking in urban areas, which will lead to better mapping experiences at street level when walking between tall buildings.

Other minor features of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 include support for up to 16GB of LPDDR5x memory up to 4200MHz, USB 3.1, USB-C, UFS 4.0, and a Secure Processing Unit to improve enterprise security performance. Qualcomm QuickCharge 5.0 is equipped to quickly deliver power.

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Qualcomm has announced that a large number of hardware partners have already signed up for 8G 2G adoption. Among the phone makers are Asus, Honor, Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo, and Sony. Some device makers will have 8 second-generation products on the market by the end of the year.

(credit: Qualcomm)

Notably absent from Qualcomm’s initial list of supporters? samsung.

You can expect to launch a large number of 8 Gen 2 devices during the first quarter of 2023, especially in the coming period. Mobile World Congress commercial offer.