While Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon chips may steal all the limelight, it is the company’s low-end chips that sell in millions and help OEMs in changing peoples lives. Today, the company has announced four new low to mid-range Snapdragon chips that will show up in handsets from the first half of this year.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 400 and 410 chipsets have dominated the low-end Android market, and today, the company announced its successors — the Snapdragon 415 and 425. Both these chips are based on ARM’s 64-bit Cortex A53 processors in octa-core configuration. They are built on the 28nm fabrication process and have feature dual ISPs (Image Signal Processors), Quick Charge 2.0 support, and an Adreno 405 GPU — which is currently found in Qualcomm’s mid-range Snapdragon 615 chipsets. Additionally, the chipset also features DirectX 11.2 support, hardware decoder for 1080p H.264 videos, and support for external displays with resolutions of up to 1080p.
The chipsets also comes with an integrated LTE modem. The Snapdragon 415 comes with an X5 LTE modem that features a maximum download and upload speed of 150Mbps and 50Mbps, respectively. On the other hand, the Snapdragon 425 comes with an X6 LTE modem that is capable of reaching download and upload speeds of 300Mbs and 100Mbps.
Snapdragon 415 and 425 powered handsets will start showing up in Android devices that will be released during the first half of this year.
Qualcomm also announced two new Snapdragon chipsets for mid-range devices — the Snapdragon 618 and 620. These new chipsets will feature ARM’s latest Cortex A72 cores in big.LITTLE configuration with A53 cores. The Snapdragon 618 will feature six cores in big.LITTLE configuration: two powerful A72 cores and four smaller A53 cores, while the Snapdragon 620 will be an octa-core chip with four A72 and A53 cores.
Qualcomm did not reveal much about the GPU that it will be using on its mid-range chipsets, except for stating that they will come with its “next-generation Qualcomm Adreno GPU.” The chipsets are capable of recording and playing back 4K H.265 videos and also support 2K internal and 4K external displays.
The new Snapdragon 6xx chips are based on the 28nm fabrication process and come with an integrated X8 LTE modem that is capable of reaching download/upload speeds of 300/100Mbps. The Snapdragon 618 and 620 will start showing up in Android devices released in the second half of 2015.
Last but not the least, Qualcomm dropped the “Gobi” branding of its LTE modems in favor of its more popular Snapdragon brand. Henceforth, all of Qualcomm’s LTE modems will carry the Snapdragon branding along with an X and a number. The higher the number, the faster speeds the chip will be capable of reaching.
Qualcomm is also rumored to be working on its first high-end chip that will feature the successor to its own “Krait” architecture and is expected to debut in the second half of 2015. However, the company did not mention anything about it at its press briefing today.
