Qualcomm introduces Snapdragon 888-soc for smartphones

Qualcomm announced its latest soc for smartphones, among other things, at its annual Snapdragon Tech Summit. The Snapdragon 888 has a 5G modem and a renewed Hexagon AI engine that is more than 70 percent faster than the current one.

Qualcomm did not reveal many details during its opening keynote about the Snapdragon 888. Previously it was expected that Qualcomm would designate the soc with type 875, but the company chose Snapdragon 888. The company places a strong emphasis on connectivity such as 5G and the AI- features and gpu: little is known about the cpu cores. The X60 5G modem in the Snapdragon 888 supports mmWave and sub-6 frequency bands for fast wireless data transfer. Multiple SIM cards can also be used.

In the field of AI, the company says it is making a big step: the new generation Hexagon processor, the dsp responsible for AI functionality in the Snapdragon socs, would reach a computing power of up to 26TOPS, where the fifth generation achieves a maximum of 15TOPS. The AI-dsp is assisted by an economical always-on Sensing Hub, which also offers AI functionality. For gamers, the GPU gets an upgrade: the Elite Gaming Adreno GPU has drivers that can be updated and should allow 144fps in games.

Image processing for photos and videos has also been improved with a new generation Spectra-ISP, which can process 2.7 gigapixels per second. This would make the ISP 35 percent faster than the current generation and, according to Qualcomm, can process up to 120 photos at 12 megapixels per second. The Spectra-ISP is responsible for computational photography, such as blur background, add bokeh or automatic face recognition.

Among others, OnePlus, Oppo, Meizu, Xiaomi and ASUS, in addition to some lesser-known manufacturers, will release phones with the Snapdragon 888, according to Qualcomm. Devices will appear in the course of next year. During its Snapdragon Tech Summit, Qualcomm will release details about the Snapdragon 888.