The semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm officially announced its newest chipset, the Snapdragon 888, at the Tech Summit which was held Monday. Qualcomm prefers the naming 888, not Snapdragon 875 as rumored and does not follow the previous tradition of using the number five ending.
The Snapdragon 888 chipset will be the brains of the flagship smartphone lineup that will be released in 2021. “Snapdragon 888 5G offers the premium experience you deserve,” Lekha Motiwala, Director of Product Management at Qualcomm Technologies Inc., in a presentation broadcast online.
One of the main specifications that this chipset boasts is a huge upgrade for 5G network support. Snapdragon 888 has a 5G X60 modem that is fully integrated with the system on chip (SoC). Unlike the previous generation, the Snapdragon 865 uses a separate 5G modem chip.
The Snapdragon X60 modem is built with a 5 nm fabrication which offers more efficient power consumption. The third-generation RF-System modem also has mmWave and sub-6 5G compatibility. The X60 also supports multi-SIM, 5G standalone, non-standalone 5G, FDD, TDD, and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing.
The compatibility and support above ensures that the 5G features on the Snapdragon 888 can be used across all 5G networks and devices. There is also Dynamic Spectrum Sharing to enhance support with existing 4G networks.
In addition to 5G, the Snapdragon 888 is supported by a sixth generation AI Engine which promises greater performance improvements and power savings for using artificial intelligence features. In the graphics sector, Adreno GPU performance has also been improved, although it is not clear how far the specific improvements are.
Snapdragon 888 is also supported by the third generation of Elite Gaming. “Snapdragon Elite Gaming will be available to hundreds of millions of Android users and will have the biggest Adreno GPU upgrade,” explained Alex Katouzian, SVP & GM of Mobile Compute and Infrastructure at Qualcomm Technologies Inc.
Qualcomm has also increased the image processing capabilities of the Snapdragon 888 which is capable of taking 120 photos per second at 12 megapixel resolution thanks to an ISP update which is claimed to be 35 percent faster.
The new Spectra image processor is claimed to be able to increase the speed of taking photos or videos by up to 2.7 gigapixels per second. Katouzian also mentioned a number of smartphone vendors who are ready to use the Snapdragon 888 chipset next year.
Among them are Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, OnePlus, Vivo, Asus, and many more. The Tech Summit event will continue in the next two days. A more comprehensive explanation of Qualcomm’s latest chipset will be revealed today.
