Qualcomm has launched the Snapdragon 675, its latest entry into the highly competitive market for mid-range SoCs. Designed to tackle competition from HiSilicon, Samsung and MediaTek among others, its latest piece of silicon focuses on the “big three” functions of gaming, imaging and AI. The successor to the Snapdragon 670, the new chip will start appearing in new smartphones in early 2019.
With mobile gaming starting to gain momentum and makers bringing gaming-centric devices to market, the new Snapdragon 675 is the result of a collaboration between Qualcomm and the makers of game engines including Unity, Unreal, Messiah and NeoX. This has resulted in higher frame rates in games powered by these technologies for a smoother gaming experience.
Another area that Qualcomm has focused on with the new Snapdragon 675 is with its imaging capabilities. With OEMs starting to bring triple camera set ups to mid-range devices, the Snapdragon 675 embeds the company’s Spectra 200 image signaling processor (ISP) to further facilitate this trend. This includes bringing support for limitless slo-mo videos, without being limited to short bursts and AI-powered algorithms.
In fact, AI is also another key area of focus in the Snapdragon 675. The multi-core AI Engine in the chip is claimed to deliver up 50 percent faster performance in AI applications. It has been designed to support the core features of Android 9 Pie including optimizing battery performance, delivering better photos and helping digital personal assistants adapt to a user’s voice. The AI also works with the Adreno GPU, Kryo CPUs and Hexagon DSP to power heterogenous computational functions.
The Snapdragon 675 is also embedded with Qualcomm’s X12 modem for up to 600Mbps download speeds as well as support for Quick Charge 4+. This can charge a smartphone from zero to 50 percent in just 15 minutes.