01Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 888 promises faster speeds, better cameras, and more powerful AI

Qualcomm teased the Snapdragon 888, its latest 5G-equipped flagship smartphone processor, on the first day of its Snapdragon Tech Summit. But at the day two keynote, the company provided all of the details on the new chipset, which will be the brains powering almost every major 2021 Android flagship.

First off, the basic specs: the new processor will feature Qualcomm’s new Kryo 680 CPU, which will be one of the first devices to feature Arm’s latest customized Cortex-X1 core and promises up to 25 percent higher performance than last year’s chip with a maximum clock speed of 2.84GHz. And the company’s new Adreno 660 GPU promises a 35 percent jump on graphics rendering, in what it says is the biggest performance leap for its GPUs yet. The new CPU and GPU are also more power-efficient compared to those on the Snapdragon 875, with a 25 percent improvement for the Kyro 680 and a 20 percent improvement on the Adreno 660.

25 percent faster CPU and the biggest GPU performance jump yet for Qualcomm

Another key difference between the Snapdragon 888 and last year’s 865 is that Qualcomm has finally integrated its 5G modem directly into the SoC. That means manufacturers won’t have to deal with finding the space (and power) for a second external modem. Specifically, the Snapdragon 888 will feature Qualcomm’s 5nm X60 modem, which the company announced back in February, and it will enable better carrier aggregation and download speeds up to 7.5 Gbps on new devices. The Snapdragon 888 will also support Wi-Fi 6 as well as the new 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E standard, which should boost that rollout by making it the default on most Android flagships.

As is tradition for a Snapdragon update, Qualcomm is also putting a big emphasis on its camera improvements. The new Spectra 580 ISP is the first from Qualcomm to feature a triple ISP, allowing it to do things like capture three simultaneous 4K HDR video streams or three 28-megapixel photos at once at up to 2.7 gigapixels per second (35 percent faster than last year).

Capture three simultaneous 4K HDR video streams at once

It also offers improved burst capabilities and is capable of capturing up to 120 photos in a single second at a 10-megapixel resolution. Lastly, the upgraded ISP adds computational HDR to 4K videos, an improved low-light capture architecture, and the option to shoot photos in 10-bit color in HEIF. That said, it’ll be up to phone manufacturers to build cameras that can take advantage of the new features.

The performance, thanks to Qualcomm’s new Hexagon 780 AI processor. The Snapdragon 888 features Qualcomm’s sixth-generation AI Engine, which it promises will help improve everything from computational photography to gaming to voice assistant performance. The Snapdragon 888 can perform 26 trillion operations per second (TOPS), compared to 15 TOPS on the Snapdragon 865, while delivering three times better power efficiency. Additionally, Qualcomm is promising big improvements in both scalar and tensor AI tasks as part of those upgrades.

The Snapdragon 888 also features the second-generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub, a dedicated low-power AI processor for smaller hardware-based tasks, like identifying when you raise your phone to light up the display. The new second-gen Sensing Hub is dramatically improved, which means the phone will be able to rely less on the main Hexagon processor for those tasks.

All of this adds up to a substantial boost in Qualcomm’s — and therefore, nearly every Android flagship’s — capabilities for what our smartphones will be able to do. The first Snapdragon 888 smartphones are expected to show up in early 2021, which means it won’t be long before we’ll be able to try out the next generation of Android flagships for ourselves.

02

Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 888 processor will power the Android flagships of 2021

Qualcomm has officially announced the Snapdragon 888 at its Snapdragon Tech Summit, offering a first look at its next-generation flagship smartphone processor. The 888 will power the next wave of 2021 Android flagships from companies like Samsung, OnePlus, LG, Sony, and more.

In a first for the company’s top-of-the-line 8-series chipsets, the Snapdragon 888 is making a big improvement for 5G: it’ll finally offer a fully integrated 5G modem, unlike last year’s Snapdragon 865 (which required that manufacturers include a separate modem chip inside the cramped interior of a modern smartphone).

The future of Android flagships is here

The Snapdragon 888 will feature Qualcomm’s X60 modem, announced earlier this year, which jumps to a 5nm process for better power efficiency and improvements for 5G carrier aggregation across the mmWave and sub-6GHz bands of the spectrum. Between the new 5nm architecture and the power efficiency gains from an integrated modem, the new chip looks to offer some substantial battery improvements when it comes to 5G.

In addition to the 5G improvements, Qualcomm also teased several other advances coming to the Snapdragon 888, including the company’s sixth-gen AI Engine (running on a “redesigned” Qualcomm Hexagon processor), which promises a big jump in performance and power efficiency for AI tasks. The Snapdragon 888 also will feature the “most significant upgrade in Qualcomm Adreno GPU performance,” though specifics on what kind of improvements are coming have yet to be announced.

Lastly, Qualcomm previewed new photography features that the Snapdragon 888 will enable, including the ability to shoot roughly 120 photos per second at 12-megapixel resolution, thanks to the updated ISP (which is up to 35 percent faster).

Per Qualcomm’s usual practice, today’s announcement is just a first look at the Snapdragon 888. A more comprehensive overview of the specs and improvements being offered with this year’s chipset will arrive in the Snapdragon Tech Summit’s second day of keynotes, on December 2nd. And given Qualcomm’s near-total dominance when it comes to providing chips for almost every major smartphone in the US, the debut of the Snapdragon 888 isn’t just a first look at Qualcomm’s latest advances: it’s a preview of what to expect from phones like Samsung’s Galaxy S21 lineup and other top Android phones for 2021, too.

We’ll have additional details on the Snapdragon 888 tomorrow as the summit continues, so check back for more information soon.

03

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon phone chip won't support AV1 video streaming

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888 will arrive in 5G devices in the first quarter of 2021.

Qualcomm

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 888 processor won't support a much ballyhooed video compression technology developed by Google, Netflix and other technology giants, dealing a blow to data efficiency and streaming quality improvements for the next-generation of Android phones.

Judd Heape, a Qualcomm vice president for product management, says the mobile chip leader couldn't include AV1 technology in the new chip because of schedule and cost considerations. Qualcomm chips will eventually support  AV1, he said, though he declined to provide timing.

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"It didn't make it into this piece of silicon," Heape said in an interview about the Snapdragon 888's new photo and video features.

The absence of AV1 in the Snapdragon 888 is a setback for the fledgling technology for millions of new phones. Qualcomm's new top end chips will power phones from LG, Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo and Xiaomi. AV1 is designed to cut data usage and enable sharper, higher resolution video streams.

The alliance, whose founders also include Microsoft, Amazon, Mozilla, Intel and Cisco, declined to comment.

AV1 is video compression technology, sometimes called a codec, that shrinks data requirements for video files and streams. That compression is essential for avoiding monthly network data limits and watching sharper 4K video without needing more network capacity. YouTube, Facebook and Netflix support AV1 for online video.

The AV1 format is popular with tech companies because it helps them avoid expensive patent licensing costs that come with competing technologies. Those include H.264, which dates back to 2003 but is still widely used, and that codec's newer sequel, called HEVC or H.265.  The royalty fees factor into everything from smartphone price tags to the costs of video streaming services.

The AV1 project began with AOM's founding in 2015. It released AV1 in 2018 after combining codec technology from Google, Mozilla and Cisco. Newer AOM members include tech giants Apple, Facebook and Samsung.

Browsers, including Firefox and Chrome, and video streaming services began supporting AV1 starting in 2018. The format offers 30% better compression than a codec progenitor, Google's VP9, according to Facebook tests. Netflix measured a 20% improvement.

Chip support is important for recording and playing AV1 video streams without taxing phone batteries. Chipmakers Intel, Arm, AMD and Nvidia are in the alliance.

AV1 has won some hardware support victories this year. Smartphone chipmaker MediaTek added AV1 support into its Dimensity 1000 chip, and Nvidia's RTX 30 graphics chip also can speed AV1 streaming for better streaming from sites like Amazon's Twitch, which has become popular for broadcasting videogame play. Intel's 11th generation Core processors, code named Tiger Lake and just arriving in PCs now, also support AV1.

HEVC support is broader, reaching not only Qualcomm phone chips but also processors from Intel and Apple. However, HEVC has been hampered by patent licensing uncertainties, complexities and expense that helped lead to the creation of the AV1 alliance.