The two-day Snapdragon Technology Summit is coming to an end. A large number of new processors such as Snapdragon 8 Gen1 and Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 have been released. The first batch of terminal products will be available later this month. Previously, Qualcomm only announced that the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 uses a 4nm process technology. At the time, the company did not disclose the specific foundry that makes the chip. According to media reports, in the Q&A session, Qualcomm CEO, Cristiano Amon, confirmed that the 4nm process comes from Samsung in South Korea.
At the same time, Qualcomm’s senior vice president and general manager of mobile computing business, Alex Katouzian also said in a separate interview that the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 had not been handed over to TSMC. Obviously, the statements of the two executives mean that the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 is currently exclusively manufactured by Samsung.
For Qualcomm, the selection of foundry partners should be based on comprehensive considerations of technology, production capacity, cost, and film performance. At the same time, 4nm is the ultimate enhanced version of 5nm. For those customers who have already used Snapdragon 888, the speed increase will not be significant.
According to Qualcomm, the CPU performance of Snapdragon 8 Gen1 increases by 20%. Furthermore, the energy efficiency increases by 30% while the GPU performance increases by 30%. According to the company, the performance and heat control is better than the previous generation.
Snapdragon 8 Gen1 technical specs
The CPU keeps the three-cluster design and is perfectly in line with the previous leaks. There is a Prime Core with an ARM Cortex-X2 core with a 3.0 GHz clock speed. There are also three “supporting” performance cores based on the newer ARM Cortex-A710 standard. Those will run at 2.5 GHz. Finally, we have four efficiency cores that will also sport the new ARM Cortex-A510 standard running at 1.8 GHz.
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Overall, the new CPU will be 20 percent faster than the one in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. It will also reduce power usage by up to 30 percent. That certainly is a significant upgrade. The upcoming Xiaomi 12, for example, will be 20 percent faster than its predecessor.
The new chipset introduced the new Adreno 730 GPU with a 30 percent performance boost and up to 25 power-saving thanks to its new architecture. Qualcomm developed three Elite Gaming features, one of which will allow developers to strike a balance between performance and power efficiency. The Adreno Frame Motion Engine allows the GPU to render a game at double the frame rate while using the same amount of power. Alternatively, it can keep the FPS the same while cutting power draw by half.
Furthermore, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 brings an integrated X65 5G modem. It offers support for both sub-6 and mmWave operations. It can deliver theoretical peak speeds of 10 Gbps. For the first time, it also supports carrier aggregation for the uplink. Local connectivity enjoys Wi-Fi 6 and 6E support, plus improvements to Bluetooth. The new chip is capable of streaming CD Lossless Audio over Bluetooth LE. It also supports Bluetooth LE Audio. It also offers support for Stereo recording along with voice-back channels.
Qualcomm also ensures top-notch security with its new flagship SoC. There is a new Trust Management Engine. It will sit below the hypervisor standard. The new Engine will remain secure even if the security zones above it are compromised.
