Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8230 vs NXP i.MX 6SLL vs Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064A

Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8230

The Qualcomm MSM8230 (Snapdragon S4 Plus series) is a ARM based high-end smartphone SoC in 2012. It contains two Krait (ARMv7) CPU cores at up to 1.2 GHz, a Adreno 305 GPU, a single channel LPDDR2 memory controller and radio elements.  The chip is produced in 28nm LP (low power process) at TSMC. Compared to the MSM8930, the 8230 lacks LTE.

The Krait cores offer a slightly better performance as the standard Cortex-A9 cores and are compatible to the NEON SIMD extensions.

NXP i.MX 6SLL

The NXP i.MX 6SLL or i.MX6SLL (i.MX 6 Series, MCIMX6V7DVN10AB Part Number) is a single core processor for e-readers. It integrates a single ARM Cortex-A9 processor core clocked at up to 1 GHz and a 2D graphics accelerator called Pixel Processor PXP (including E-INK display controller EPDC with support of up to 2332x1650 and 5-bit greyscale). The integrated memory controller supports up to 400 MHz LPDDR2 or LPDDR3 (32-bit interface). Flash memory can be attached using eMMC 5.0 or SD 3.0 (three connections available). Furthermore, the SoC supports 2x USB 2.0 OTH with PHY. The chip is pin-compatible with the i.MX 6SoloLite which features an additional Vivante GC320 graphics card. WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS or other peripherals have to be connected with external chips.

Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064A

The Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064A is a high-end SoC for Android smartphones and tablets, which was introduced in 2012. The chip integrates 4 CPU cores, which are based on the ARMv7-compatible, but by Qualcomm designed Krait architecture. This provides a much higher per-MHz performance than Cortex-A9 chips such as Nvidia's Tegra 3 or the Exynos 4412 from Samsung, but does not quite reach the performance of the Cortex-A15 (for example in the Tegra 4). The memory is accessed via 2 x 32 bit LPDDR2 at up to 533 MHz, which offers a bandwidth of 8.5 GB/s.

Thanks to a dedicated decoder, the SoC can accelerate 1080p video playback up to a frame rate of 30 fps. 3D photos are possible up to a resolution of 20 megapixels. In addition, the chip also integrates a wireless module with Bluetooth 4.0 and WLAN 802.11ac/a/b/g/n. Produced by TSMC in 28 nm (LP), the power consumption should be around 4 watts (estimated, depending on the clock speed).