Qualcomm announces new quadcore chips for mobile phones – update

Chip designer Qualcomm has announced two new quadcore socs for use in mobile phones. It concerns the MSM8226 and the MSM8626, both of which have the Adreno 305 GPU and have the WTR2605 radio chip baked in.

With the two new quad-core socs, Qualcomm says it is aiming at the market for high volume 3G phones. Previously, the company only had a quad-core chip for the high-end market, the APQ8064, which is used, for example, in the Padfone 2 and Nexus 4. In addition, there are two slower quad-cores for cheap phones, the MSM8225Q and MSM8625, which should be available sometime in 2013.

It is not completely clear which processor design is used; Qualcomm uses its own Krait design for its fastest chips, and ARM’s Cortex A5 design is used for the cheaper socs. Qualcomm calls neither concrete, but does mention that the MSM8226 and the MSM8626 are based on a ‘previous quadcore offering’ and are produced at 28nm, with which the company seems to refer to the fast APQ8064. Qualcomm did not disclose clock speeds of the new socs.

The big difference would then be in the GPU used; where the APQ8064 still has the fast Andreno 320, the MSM8226 and the MSM8626 have a slower Adreno 305. In addition, the new chips are suitable for dual SIM phones and the built-in WTR2605 radio chip is optimized for the frequencies used in China. It is not yet known whether the chips will also be used in mobile phones for other markets. The first samples are expected in the second half of 2013.

Update, Dec. 6: AnandTech has discovered that the new chips do not use the Krait design, but are built around ARM’s Cortex A7 design.