Qualcomm Shows New Dual-core Snapdragon Chips

At a financial analyst meeting in New York yesterday, Qualcomm showed off its System-on-Chip roadmap. The new family of Snapdragon SoC chipsets intended for high-end smartphones as well as tablets, reported EE Times. The third generation Snapdragon mobile processor chipset platform includes two new chipsts MSM8260 and MSM8660. Both new chipsets will carry dual-core Scorpian CPU with up to 1.2GHz frequencies.


Almost all high-end Google Android mobile OS based phones come with Snapdragon CPU inside. All new Windows Phone 7 phones come with Snapdragon chipsets running up to 1GHz speeds. This clearly indicates that the current generation mobile OS do demand and operate better on higher frequency supporting SoC chips.



Third generation Snapdragon MSM8x60 series chipsets built on 45-nm process will have two Snapdragon cores and one Adreno 205 GPU crammed on the same die. With integrated 3G mobile broadband support, one can expect several next-gen features from the smartphones carrying these chipsets. Full HD video recording, 16 megapixel camera support and DivX support are good enough to keep the multimedia frenzy folks busy.

Read the features of MSM8260 and MSM8660 chipsets below:

• Scorpion asynchronous dual-CPU cores, up to 1.2GHz for faster response and processing
• Integrated 3G mobile broadband connectivity
• MSM8260 support for HSPA+ networks up to 14 Mbps downloads and 5.6 Mbps uploads as well as GSM, GPRS and EDGE
• MSM8660 support for HSPA+ networks up to 14.4 Mbps downloads and 5.76 Mbps as well as CDMA2000 1X, 1xEV-DO Rel A/B, GSM, GPRS and EDGE
• Low-power 45nm process technology for higher integration and performance
• High-definition (1080p) video recording and playback up to 30 frames per second
• Multiple video codecs: (MPEG-4, MPEG-2, H.264, H.263, VC-1, DivX, WMV-9, Sorenson Spark, VP6)
• High-performance GPU up to 88M triangles/sec and 532M 3D pixels/sec and dedicated 3D/2D acceleration engines for Open GLES 2.0 and Open VG 1.1 acceleration
• High-resolution WXGA (1280x800) display support
• 16-megapixel camera support
• Built-in eighth-generation gps engine with Standalone-GPS and Assisted-GPS modes
• Support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
• Multiple audio codecs: (AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, FR, EFR, HR, WB-AMR, G.729a, G.711, AAC stereo encode)
• Support for mobile broadcast TV (MediaFLO, DVB-H and ISDB-T)
• Support for Android, Brew Mobile Platform and Windows Phone

Qualcomm also showed off new Snapdragon family of CPUs built on 28nm process and based on ARM architecture. First in that new family would be the MSM8960 chipset that carries two next-gen CPU cores. This new MSM8960 promises five times the performance of original Snapdragon chip at 75 percent less power consumption. Qualcomm resisted sharing the CPU clock frequencies of this MSM8960 chip. New MSM8960 SoC chipset will offer Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, FM Radio and also multi-mode LTE/3G modem modules integrated inside it. Qualcomm boasted that the integrated GPU will offer four times the graphics power than the current generation Adreno GPUs.

Qualcomm also unveiled new Adreno 300 series GPU that promise to offer gaming performance equivalent to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game consoles. The sampling of these new next-generation chips will begin next year. And may be by late 2011 we ll get to see smartphones and tablets running these next generation Snapdragon chips.