Qualcomm has fired a broadside of product release news a little ahead of the upcoming MWC 2016 show in Barcelona, Spain. It is likely some of this new crop of processors will feature in the many mobile and wearable devices that will be announced and/or launched at the world's premier mobile tech show. In summary Qualcomm has revealed three new Snapdragon SoCs for smartphones, the Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor and the Snapdragon X16 LTE modem.
The three new mobile processors are the Snapdragon 625, Snapdragon 435, and the Snapdragon 425. All of these are designed to support better mobile experiences, thanks to higher performance, enhanced features, and longer battery life than their predecessors. Of the three, only the Snapdragon 625 is built on the 14nm process like the flagship Snapdragon 820. However all these new processors support advanced Qualcomm tech including LTE with carrier aggregation, support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MU-MIMO, dual camera ISPs, the Qualcomm Hexagon DSP for power-efficient audio, a sensor hub meeting Android M sensor requirements, and Qualcomm Quick Charge.
The Snapdragon 625 supports high-end features and great battery life with up to 35 per cent lower power usage than its predecessor, the Snapdragon 617. It is equipped with a Qualcomm Adreno 506 GPU for faster smoother gaming experiences, employs an X9 LTE modem, has 4K video capture and playback capabilities, plus H.265 (HEVC) support. The Snapdragon 435 builds upon the 430 to bring X8 LTE support. Lastly, the new Snapdragon 425 redefines the entry-point with its improved X6 LTE modem, dedicated Hexagon DSP, dual ISP, computer vision features and more. Smartphones featuring these processors are expected to become available in H2 2016.
Turning to processors for wearables, Qualcomm has launched the Snapdragon Wear 2100. This processors is (30 per cent) smaller, supports always on technology and consumes (25 per cent) less power than previous generation wearable processors. Qualcomm says that numerous wearables powered by the Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor are already in development including smartwatches, smart eyewear and elder trackers.
Last but not least Qualcomm has launched the Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE modem. Importantly this is the first commercially announced modem to support Gigabit Class LTE speeds -that's up to 1Gbps - close to ten times the speeds offered by the first LTE devices. This modem is built using the 14nm FinFET manufacturing process and will be available in devices from H2 this year.
