Qualcomm Prepping Snapdragon 810, 808 Processors

By Kevin Parrish
published

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon chips should appear in devices in the first half of 2015.

Qualcomm announced on Monday the Snapdragon 810 and 808 processors for flagship smartphones and tablets. Both are designed with 20 nm process technology and feature Cat 6 LTE, advanced multimedia features and 64-bit capability. The processors are Qualcomm's highest performing platform to date, completing the company's lineup of 64-bit enabled, LTE-equipped chipsets.

"These products underscore Qualcomm Technologies focus on 64-bit leadership, accelerating its availability across all product tiers while maintaining a long-term commitment to the continued development of its own next-generation custom 64-bit CPU microarchitecture, with more details expected to be shared later this year," states the PR.

The new Snapdragon 810 processor supports native 4K Ultra HD interface and audio. The chip also supports an upgraded camera suite using gyro-stabilization and 3D noise reduction for producing high quality 4K video at 30 frames per second and 1080p video at 120 frames per second. 14-bit dual Image Signal Processors (ISPs) can support 1.2 GP/s throughput and image sensors up to 55 MP.

The new 64-bit Snapdragon 810 features four ARM Cortex-A57 CPU cores and four Cortex-A53 cores in a big LITTLE setup, along with the new Adreno 430 GPU, which provides support for 4K displays and OpenGL ES 3.1. This GPU is designed to deliver up to 30 percent faster graphics performance and 100 percent faster GPGPU computer performance than the previous GPU, while also reducing power consumption by up to 20 percent.

In addition to those features, the Snapdragon 810 also introduces high speed LPDDR4 memory, provides frame buffer compression and external 4K display support via HDMI 1.4, and is the first mobile platform to implement Qualcomm VIVE 2-stream 802.11ac with multi-user MIMO. There's also support for Bluetooth 4.1, USB 3.0, NFC and the latest Qualcomm IZat location core.

As for the Snapdragon 808 processor, it integrates the same LTE-Advanced, RF360 and Wi-Fi connectivity as the Snapdragon 810 processor. However, this chip includes support for 2K displays, and like the more powerful snapdragon 810, this chip is fully software compatible with the 64-bit ARM8-A instruction set.

A list of features show that the Snapdragon 808 is designed for 2560 x 1600 (WQXGA) displays. The chip also includes two ARM Cortex-A57 cores paired with a quad Cortex-A53 CPU in a big LITTLE setup, 12-bit dual Image Signal Processors, support for LPDDR3 memory, frame buffer compression and external 4K display support via HDMI 1.4. The chip's Adreno 418 GPU provides support for OpenGL ES 3.1 plus hardware tessellation, geometry shaders, programmable blending.

"The announcement of the Snapdragon 810 and 808 processors underscore Qualcomm Technologies' continued commitment to technology leadership and a time-to-market advantage for our customers for premium tier 64-bit LTE-enabled smartphones and tablets," said Murthy Renduchintala, executive vice president, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and co-president, QCT.

The Snapdragon 810 and 808 processors are expected to begin sampling in the second half of 2014 and made available in commercial devices by the first half of 2015.

Kevin Parrish
18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Doug Lord
    It seems the pace of computing performance innovation is slowing dramatically. Desktop CPUs are totally stagnant. Desktop CPUs (Maxwell/750ti) and laptop CPUs are improving much more in power consumption then speed. Laptop/Tablet/Phone GPUs are still getting faster, but instead of 2x gen-2-gen its +30%. In a few years, barring some breakthrough in parallelism, we are going to hit the max. Hopefully by that time the cloud will be able to put giant servers at our fingertips to makeup for it.
    Reply
  • TeKEffect
    So the 801 for all of 2014
    Reply
  • ragenalien
    So the 801 for all of 2014

    The 805 is scheduled for 2014. It's the 800/801 with Adreno 430.
    Reply
  • Immaculate
    "The new Snapdragon 810 processor supports native 4K Ultra HD interface and audio."
    I may have read it wrong but what is 4K audio?
    Reply
  • ericburnby
    Too little, too late, Qualcomm. A57 cores aren't even as fast as Apple's current A7 cores and you're telling us to wait until next year?

    You used to custom design your own ARM processors. Why are you picking off-the-shelf A57's instead of making your own improved versions?
    Reply
  • anthony8989
    Too little, too late, Qualcomm. A57 cores aren't even as fast as Apple's current A7 cores and you're telling us to wait until next year?

    You used to custom design your own ARM processors. Why are you picking off-the-shelf A57's instead of making your own improved versions?

    Apple took the market by surprize with it's A7. Samsung is still playing catch up. It costs tens of millions of dollars in licensing instruction sets alone. They can't just abandon millions of dollars invested in reaction to Apple's stratagem. Samsung is making the right moves for the time being. The increases in performance from gen-to-gen on their SoC is considerable. And I really doubt Apple will be able to blindside them twice in the same decade. But who knows.
    Reply
  • laststop311
    what a pointless waste quad core in a phone. I'd rather have 2 bigger more complex cores with much faster single thread performance. Single thread performance is what really matters and is what you will actually notice as a speed boost.
    Reply
  • ericburnby
    The increases in performance from gen-to-gen on their SoC is considerable. And I really doubt Apple will be able to blindside them twice in the same decade. But who knows.

    Gen to gen Apple is way ahead of Qualcomm and Samsung (though Samsung is ahead of Qualcomm).

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/ggsbyb5kq1ilrzr/socsingle.gif
    Reply
  • anthony8989
    That is an ultra narrow scope to judge SoC's by. Too little in fact to deem one SoC totally better than the other by. Whatever your opinion on Apple , the fact of the matter is Samsung is in first place on market share. So Apple doesn't have the number one formula at the moment. Whatever Samsung is doing , it's working well enough to keep them king of the hill for now. A geekbench result chart at 1ghz base doesn't really change any of that. Its like looking at 1/100th of the picture .
    Reply
  • rwinches
    Apple is so far behind in the tech, where is multi tasking, multi windows and multi users? Oh and way overpriced. Their only claim to fame is the huge selection of peripherals and accessories that span a wide spectrum of application, which in fact is their best differentiator.

    These ARM chips which are rapidly getting better and more feature packed, are not only for phones they are for tablets and notebooks These Qualcomm SoCs have 8 and 6 cores which can be switched on and off individually giving great power management while being able to respond to loads.

    http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/gadgets/five-reasons-why-the-lenovo-ideapad-a10-is-better-than-the-chromebook/
    Reply