Global chipmaking giant Qualcomm has announced the launch of its latest flagship processor for mobile phones, the 855. The announcement, which was made at the company’s Snapdragon Technology Summit in Hawaii last week, heralds the launch of a chip that will almost certainly appear in the first wave of 5G phones expected next year.
Qualcomm has said the new processor will support “multi-gigabit” download speeds on 5G networks. The Snapdragon Technology Summit was also one of the last major milestones before blazing-fast 5G cellular networks launch in the United States next year and both AT&T and Verizon were on hand to tout their real 5G devices at the Summit. That was a first, since so far most 5G demos were theoretical or experimental demos that did not use real devices that people could buy.
Because of Qualcomm’s dominance in the mobile space, particularly in the United States, there is really little question that the Snapdragon 855 will appear in most major flagship phones in 2019, except in Apple phones. The new chip is reported to take a big step forward in processing power, image processing and gaming, while improving battery life.
Qualcomm maintains that the chip will provide “up to three times the AI performance compared to the previous generation mobile platform,” and it will add a new dedicated computer vision processor (handy for intelligent cameras). “It will recognize who and what you’re capturing,” says Qualcomm Snapdragon boss Alex Katouzian. The chip will also apparently offer improved gaming and augmented reality experiences, but Qualcomm did not offer any details at the summit.
Qualcomm had previously confirmed its next Snapdragon would be on a 7nm manufacturing process, down from the 10nm of Snapdragon 845 and 835. Those smaller circuits generally mean improvements in efficiency, which could mean more performance, battery life, or both.
Separately, Qualcomm took the opportunity to rebrand its ultrasonic, under-the-screen fingerprint sensor technology initiative as the Qualcomm 3D Sonic Sensor, though it is not clear if Qualcomm’s convinced any new manufacturers to buy in.
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