“A new nomenclature, for a philosophy”. That could be a perfect claim for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 , the high-performance chip that Qualcomm has presented during the Snapdragon Summit 2021 as the successor to the Snapdragon 888.
It is a chip that, in several ways, breaks with what was previously established . First, it says goodbye to the three-digit nomenclature that Qualcomm has been using for the past few years to identify each of its products. The change, however, is not a surprise, as the North American brand had announced this decision days ago.
From now on, all Snapdragon products will be identified by a number, which will determine the family to which they belong (the higher this digit, the more powerful the chip) and the generation. A structure that, curiously, Qualcomm has been using for several years in its products for laptops .
The CPU of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is, in in a way, invisible
The nomenclature change, however, is not the only twist we can see in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Qualcomm has also changed the way it talks about its processor. In your press release, for example, does not talk about the CPU of this chip . Literally. Words like CPU or Kyro do not appear at any time in the text. A communication strategy that contrasts with that of previous chips, when this element was the main or one of the main ones of his speech.
The only information revealed in this regard, included in a complementary document to the press release, is that it has ARM X2 cores and that its maximum clock frequency is 3.0 GHz. Nothing else.
The reason behind this change at the communication level is unknown, but it is not too difficult to imagine where the shots could go.
First of all, Qualcomm has been mounting the cores that ARM designs (they don't even make modifications to the original IP). These designs are available to any company, as long as they pay the license required by ARM. Therefore, Qualcomm's ability to differentiate itself in this field is quite limited. If Samsung decides to mount in its next Exynos the same cores that Qualcomm has incorporated in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, it is likely that the performance of both CPUs will be super similar. Second, the improvement over the previous generation is 20% in performance and 30% in energy efficiency . Good figures, but, on the marketing side, less spectacular than those that were promulgated years ago on their CPUs. And finally, it could be said that the CPU of mobile SoCs have lost prominence in recent years . They are still a vital element from a technical point of view, since they are the axis that processes much of what happens on a phone, but the evolutionary interest is now in fields such as artificial intelligence, computational photography or cloud-gaming. Therefore, other elements such as the modem, the NPU or the GPU are attracting more and more interest. In these segments, in addition, Qualcomm can differentiate itself from its competition, since they are components that they design themselves. Woman capturing modern city view with smartphone against cityscape
Photography, artificial intelligence and connectivity: the three main axes of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is the company's first chip manufactured in a 4-nanometer process. Among its main innovations we find the X65 modem, which opens the door to bandwidths of up to 10 Gbps on supported 5G networks. The chip is also compatible with Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E networks, being able to download at a maximum of 3.6 Gbps.
Another of the main changes is found in the photographic field, where Qualcomm has made notable progress. The company has significantly improved the triple ISP that we saw in the past generation. Now they are 18-bit ISPs capable of processing up to 3.2 gigapixels per second, recording video in 8K under the HDR10 + standard and even capturing videos in portrait mode thanks to what Qualcomm has dubbed the Bokeh Engine.
Furthermore, the North American company has incorporated a fourth low-consumption ISP that can process the images captured by any of the cameras in the background without affecting the autonomy of the device. This element is useful, for example, to monitor the presence of the owner and start blocking the device when it is not in front of the screen.
Man's hands holding smartphone with blank screen and playing video games In artificial intelligence tasks, Qualcomm ensures that this new Snapdrgon 8 Gen 1 is much faster than its predecessor . One of the keys behind this improvement is the new Hexagon processor, which incorporates tensory accelerators twice as fast, as well as a shared memory with twice the capacity. Furthermore, several interesting functions have been developed on these components, such as bokeh filters inspired by Leica or a system that intelligently prioritizes notifications.
In the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, on the other hand, we find the third generation of the Qualcomm Sensing Hub , a low-power processor that is responsible for treating the information from different sensors, always in the background and with reduced energy consumption.
The GPU of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 – whose name we do not know – has also received several improvements . Specifically, Qualcomm talks about 30% in graphic rendering capabilities, as well as 25% more energy efficiency. This new component also opens the door to technologies such as Variable Rate Shading Pro, which offers developers greater control.
In the field of sound, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 integrates Bluetooth 5.2, as well as compatibility with the aptX Lossless standard, which promises audio quality comparable to a CD , wirelessly. Finally, this chip introduces a Trust Management Engine that promises to increase the security of the devices and is also compatible with Android Ready SE, a new standard for carrying digital keys, driver's licenses and other identifications directly on the mobile.
When will the first devices with this SoC arrive?
The first products with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will arrive, according to Qualcomm, in late 2021 . However, the true take-off of the chip will probably occur in early 2022, when the number of devices with this processor will multiply.
Among the brands that will make use of it are Honor, Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Redmi, Xiaomi, Sony and ZTE. That is to say: all the main ones, except for Apple and Samsung. The latter, however, may also make use of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in some variants of the Galaxy S22 , its next reference smartphone, although, for the moment, nothing has been confirmed about.
