At the Snapdragon Tech Summit, which resumed in Hawaii, Qualcomm officially unveiled its annual flagship mobile computing platform, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which is built on TSMC's second-generation 4nm process and usesArm Cortex-X3 semi-customized CPU design, corresponding to hardware-level real-time ray tracing, with a maximum operating clock of 3.2GHz.
Commercial devices are expected to be launched as early as the end of this year
According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8550 Gen 8 computing platform, model SM2-AB, integrates Snapdragon Smart, Snapdragon Sight, Snapdragon Elite Gaming, Snapdragon Connect, Snapdragon Sound, and Arm's latest semi-customized CPU design.
In addition, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computing platform also supports full 5G connectivity and Bluetooth 5.3 technical specifications, corresponding to LPDDR16-5 memory and UFS 4200 storage components with a capacity of up to 4.0GB respectively. It can also correspond to Qualcomm 3D Sonic Sensor and 3D Sonic Max ultrasonic fingerprint recognition technology, and the charging function supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 fast charging technology.
Commercial devices powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computing platform are expected to launch as early as the end of this year. For example, vivo has already announced that it will unveil its new device on the evening of November 11.New flagship phone X90 series, and brands including Red Magic, Honor, ZTE, Xiaomi, Star Era, Meizu, Sony, Redmi, OPPO, nubia, Motorola, OnePlus, Sharp, ASUS, ROG, and iQOO will also launch mobile phone products using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computing platform.
It also uses the Arm Cortex-X3 semi-customized design and supports hardware-level real-time ray tracing effects.
In terms of specifications, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computing platform also uses the 64-bit Kryo CPU architecture. The prime core adopts the semi-customized Arm Cortex-X3 design with an operating clock of up to 3.2GHz. The other four performance cores operate at 4GHz and are expected to use the Cortex-A2.8 CPU design. The energy-saving cores use the upgraded Arm Cortex-A715 CPU design, but the number has been reduced to three, and the operating clock is 510GHz.
The overall design still maintains a total of 8 cores, but it is obvious that Qualcomm has further increased the operating clock of the main core, kept the performance cores at 4, and reduced the energy-saving cores to 3. The reason may be that they believe that under normal operating conditions, the main needs can be met through 3 sets of upgraded energy-saving cores, thereby improving the operating performance of the main cores and performance cores.
The display part is not likeMediaTek Dimensity 9200It directly adopts Arm's flagship Immortalis GPU and still maintains its own Adreno GPU design, but still supports hardware-level real-time ray tracing effects, and adds a post-processor called Snapdragon Game Post Processing Accelerator to enhance the performance of game display applications. It also supports Vulkan 1.3, as well as API resources such as OpenGL ES 3.2 and OpenCL 2.0 FP. It also supports H.265 hardware-accelerated playback and VP9 decoding and playback functions, as well as image formats such as HDR10+, HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision.
In the relevant published data, Qualcomm stated that the CPU performance of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computing platform is 35% higher than the previous generation, while power consumption is reduced by 40%. As for the new generation Adreno GPU, it improves display performance by 25% and reduces power consumption by 45% compared to the previous generation.
Qualcomm also emphasized that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computing platform will be fully compatible with Epic Game's Unreal Engine 5 gaming engine, so it will be able to display computing effects and performance for the next generation of games, and even use Metahuman technology to interpret more realistic portrait interactions.
As for the new generation Snapdragon AIE artificial intelligence engine, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computing platform can achieve 4.35 times the artificial intelligence computing performance compared to the previous generation. It is also the first Snapdragon mobile computing platform to support INT4 full-precision computing and micro-tile inferencing computing, with a computing performance increase of up to 60% per watt and corresponding to deeper artificial intelligence computing performance.
Complete 5G and Wi-Fi 7 connectivity experience
Like its previously launched computing platform products, Qualcomm also emphasizes a complete 8G connectivity experience on the Snapdragon 2 Gen 5 computing platform.
It includes an integrated Snapdragon X70 5G data chip, which supports sub-6GHz and millimeter wave connection bands, and supports independent networking (SA) and non-independent networking (NSA) connection types, as well as FDD and TDD connection modes. It also uses Qualcomm AI-Enhanced Signal Boost signal enhancement technology and Qualcomm third-generation 5G PowerSave power saving technology, and also supports 5G+5G or 5G+4G dual SIM card dual standby connection mode.
5G download speeds can reach up to 10Gbps and upload speeds can reach 3.5Gbps, corresponding to 5G NR, NR-DC, EN-DC, LTE, CBRS, WCDMA, HSPA, TD-SCDMA, CDMA 1x, EV-DO, GSM/EDGE and other connection specifications.
As for the Wi-Fi 7 wireless connection part, it uses the Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 system, which supports a maximum transmission speed of 5.8Gbps, corresponding to 5GHz and 6GHz connection bands, and supports a maximum bandwidth of 160MHz, as well as 8 x 8 MU-MIMO connection mode, and supports up to WPA3 enterprise-level encryption protection.
The Bluetooth function is equipped with version 5.3, supporting the new LE Audio and Snapdragon Sound technologies, as well as Qualcomm aptX Voice, aptX Lossless audio and aptX Adaptive adaptive audio.
More advanced camera image capture capabilities
在新一代Qualcomm Spectra影像訊號處理器運作下，Snapdragon 8 Gen 2運算平台搭載3組對應18位元色彩的感知影像訊號處理器，分別可配置各對應3600萬畫素、30fps與零快門延遲的三鏡頭組合，以及6400萬畫素+3600萬畫素、30fps與零快門延遲的雙鏡頭組合，另外也能對應1億800萬畫素、30fps與零快門延遲的單鏡頭，或是最高可達2億畫素的單鏡頭配置使用模式。
At the same time, Qualcomm also announced that it will collaborate with Sony and Samsung on photosensitive element design to improve camera shooting performance and support photosensitive elements up to 1 inch.
In terms of dynamic video recording, it supports up to 8K HDR@60fps video shooting, and can record 6400-megapixel still images during the video shooting process. Other features include support for Rec. 2020 color performance, support for 10-bit color depth, and the ability to record 10-bit HEIF, HEIC still images and HEVC video content. It can also shoot depth of field effect videos and HDR videos with up to quadruple digital overlap shooting effects.
More advanced flagship experience
In terms of display design, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computing platform incorporates OLED display panel aging compensation technology to address the color degradation problem caused by long-term use of OLED screens. It can support up to 4K@60Hz or QHD+@144Hz display specifications. The additional extended display also supports up to 4K@60Hz display specifications, as well as 10-bit color depth, Rec. 2020 color, and HDR10, HDR10+, HDR vivid and Dolby Vision display effects.
In terms of sound, it supports Qualcomm Aqstic audio coding technology and Aqstic intelligent sound amplification technology. It also supports sound and voice communication optimization, as well as Spatial Audio panoramic sound function corresponding to head position tracking.
In addition, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computing platform also supports the Qualcomm Sensing Hub design, which includes simultaneous sound and environmental sensing, as well as always-on camera functions. This allows users to wake up the phone at any time through voice commands, record various sensor data at any time, and accelerate image capture and other application function design requirements.
In terms of overall design, Qualcomm also emphasized that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computing platform fully interprets the flagship user experience of Snapdragon Smart, Snapdragon Sight, Snapdragon Elite Gaming, Snapdragon Connect, Snapdragon Sound, etc.
As for security protection performance, Snapdragon Secure technology provides isolation, encryption, key management, authentication and other functions to further protect the user's data privacy on the phone while also improving connection security.
In addition to allowing users to intuitively unlock their phones with fingerprints through Qualcomm 3D Sonic Sensor and 3D Sonic Max ultrasonic fingerprint recognition technology, we have also collaborated with Trinamix to enhance facial recognition unlocking, reducing the risk of malicious individuals cracking the phone through forged facial expressions.
Simultaneously launched the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 reference design
Qualcomm also announced that it will provide developers with a new Innovators Development Kit based on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile computing platform and integrating a new software technology stack, allowing developers to create application products in a more flexible and customized manner and shorten their time to market.
