Faster phones ahead: Qualcomm turns Snapdragon’s dial to 1.2GHz, dual core

Robert Hallock 1 Jun, 2010 at 5:49pm ET Article published in Tech

Qualcomm today revealed that it is putting the finishing touches on a pair of designs that will not only add a second core to the firm’s famous Snapdragon system-on-chip, but turn them both to 1.2GHz as well.

Dubbed the MSM8260 and the MSM8660, Qualcomm’s new solutions are actually two generations ahead of the Snapdragon processors used today in devices like the Nexus One. All Snapdragon designs include a GPU, a multimedia processor (DSP), a cellular radio and a CPU based on the ARM architecture, which is purpose-built for mobile applications.

“Qualcomm’s first-generation Snapdragon chipsets set a new standard for advanced smartphones and smartbook devices, and our second-generation solutions are already shipping in volume,” said Steve Mollenkopf, executive vice president of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “We are very excited by the innovation our customers are already showing as they begin designing products based on our dual-core MSM8260 and MSM8660 chipsets.”

First-generation Snapdragon

QSD8250 SoC: Up to 1GHz for UMTS phones.
QSD8650 SoC: Up to 1GHz for UMTS/EV-DO phones.

Second-generation Snapdragon

MSM8x55 SoC: 1GHz enhanced core with multimedia optimizations for UMTS or UMTS/EV-DO phones.
QSD8250A SoC: 1.3GHz enhanced core with multimedia optimizations for UMTS/EV-DO phones.

NOW: Third-generation Snapdragon

MSM8260 SoC: Dual core 1.2GHz enhanced core with multimedia optimizations for UMTS phones.
MSM8660 SoC: Dual core 1.2GHz enhanced core with multimedia optimizations for UMTS/EV-DO phones.

Compared to the Snapdragons found in today’s smartphones, Qualcomm’s new goodies add 200MHz, a second processing core and support for HSPA+ networks, like the United States’ T-Mobile or Canada’s Rogers, which offer download speeds up to 21Mbit.

The MSM8260 and 8660 are now sampling to vendors, which means production devices should follow no earlier than the end of this year.

Comments

1 Jun 2010 ~ 6:09pm Cliff_Forster Holy cow! 1.2Ghz dual core CPU's in your phone!! Thats progress.

Thrax, remember the first pocket PC that hit 66 megahertz it was about as fast as a Pentium i486, and people said, wow, its like carrying a little computer, LOL. Funny thing is, it really was not all that long ago, 8 or 9 years ago maybe?

Wow... just wow.
1 Jun 2010 ~ 6:37pm Thrax I said in an article a while back that the next CPU race would be fought on the phone, and news like this makes me feel pretty justified in that assertion. All the major ARM players are working their asses off to bring more cores and faster speeds... Marvell has a quad core, NVIDIA and Qualcomm have dual cores, Apple is in the game, Texas Instruments is by no means idle... This is crazy stuff. I love smartphones so much!
1 Jun 2010 ~ 8:57pm Cliff_Forster

Thrax wrote:

I said in an article a while back that the next CPU race would be fought on the phone, and news like this makes me feel pretty justified in that assertion. All the major ARM players are working their asses off to bring more cores and faster speeds... Marvell has a quad core, NVIDIA and Qualcomm have dual cores, Apple is in the game, Texas Instruments is by no means idle... This is crazy stuff. I love smartphones so much!

I think your right. Mobile is going to be the volume business, maybe not the most profitable chip for chip, but the guys with the right designs are going to sell massive qty for major handsets. Its going to be a massive volume business. The way smart phones are going, consumers almost have a yearly desire to upgrade. A guy buys a desktop computer, or even a laptop, he might carry that system to the next major OS release that he feels a need for, that market is just so mature in comparison.

I'm not a big smart phone enthusiast personally, but I do admire the progression in mobile tech. From grey-scale pda's to what we have now just over the past decade. Its pretty amazing.
2 Jun 2010 ~ 12:37pm Snarkasm fwiw, people are OCing and undervolting the Snapdragons on the N1 and Desire to 1267MHz and higher (a 1342 is stable on most people's Desires). Sounds like Qualcomm's happy enough with their thermal envelope to push it up a little more. Wonder how much headroom the new chips will have...
2 Jun 2010 ~ 12:42pm Thrax I believe the new chips are actually made on a smaller process node. It's not just a headroom fill.
2 Jun 2010 ~ 12:48pm Snarkasm Yay, still more headroom then! Exciting.

If only we could do drop-in phone proc upgrades.... -sigh-
2 Jun 2010 ~ 1:42pm Garg Maybe if OCZ makes a phone
2 Jun 2010 ~ 9:25pm QuadWhore Oh god.