Qualcomm feeling the heat - New Low / Mid tier SOC unveiled

Qualcomm started 2015 on a mixed note with rumours of heating issue and major partner leaving their bandwagon have been the highlights of this short 2 months. Now with MWC 2015 in Barcelona is close, Qualcomm unveiled the latest mid tier SoC to bring back the fight to the other chip maker. With Mediatek, Hisilicon and Intel are hot on their trail, Qualcomm need to come out with something big to blow out the competitors.

To be fair to Qualcomm, they are one of the earliest 64 bit (Arm v8) SoC with their Snapdragon 410 and by the time everyone else join in, the Snapdragon 410 already appear dated. Their Mid-tier Snapdragon 615 is still one of the best performing SoC currently available but things could change in an instance in the technology world.

Photo by Qualcomm

The new range of SoC from Qualcomm would be leaps and bounds over their own current chipset and that could be a welcomed news for OEMs. The 410 would be replace by 415 and 425, while the SD 615 would then be replace by SD 618 and 620. This is not just mere small incremental upgrades but would be a significant one as the purported Snapdragon 415 is using the same Octa core design as the current Snapdragon 615. This raises the bar for other chipmaker because in other words, the current fastest Mid-Tier SoC would be relegated to the lower end of the spectrum.

Here is a comparison made by Phone arena

Chipset	CPU	GPU	Memory	DSP
Snapdragon 415	8 x Cortex-A53 cores (<1.4GHz)	Adreno 405	LPDDR3@667MHz eMMC 4.5 SD 3.0 (UHS-I)	Hexagon™ V50 DSP
Snapdragon 425	8 x Cortex-A53 cores (<1.7GHz)	Adreno 405	LPDDR3@933MHz eMMC 5.1 SD 3.0 (UHS-I)	Hexagon™ V50 DSP
Snapdragon 618	2x Cortex-A72 (<1.8GHz) + 4 x Cortex-A53 (<1.2GHz)	"Next-gen" Adreno	Dual channel LPDDR3 (933MHz)	Hexagon™ V56 DSP
Snapdragon 620	4 x Cortex-A72 (<1.8GHz) + 4 x Cortex-A53 (<1.2GHz)	"Next-gen" Adreno	Dual channel LPDDR3 (933MHz)	Hexagon™ V56 DSP

This changes is partly due to the announced of the latest ARM Cortex-A72 with better performance that would made last year's top tier Cortex-A57 feels sluggish. The new Cortex-A72 is a 16nm FitFet design would have better energy efficiency with smaller power required to do the same task as the previous gen of ARM Cortex.

With Qualcomm still haven't released their Krait replacements, this early leap forward would not last as other ARM chipsets manufacturer would be able to replicate or even better the current Qualcomm design. Krait replacement is not something Qualcomm would want to take lightly and might be longer then expected for it to see the light of day.

Until then, Qualcomm still show the world that they are not giving away their no 1 status without a fight. This could be a very interesting year everyone, specially the consumer. So lets sit back and enjoy.

Source : Qualcomm  / Phone Arena