Table of Contents 64q43
Despite the remote format due to the pandemic, the Snapdragon Tech Summit Digital 2020 did not fail to present the main news of the Qualcomm for the mobile market. Following the trend of recent years, the event was divided into two days and, on the first, held yesterday (1), the company made an overview of its plans for the future, in addition to presenting its new high-end processor, the Snapdragon 888 5G. 3k437
However, it was only today (2) that we got to know the specifications of the Snapdragon 888 5G. According to Qualcomm itself, the chip is the most advanced ever presented by the company and represents the biggest advance in graphics processing ever made in the line, in addition to bringing a modem 5G more capable and cost-effective, new artificial intelligence capabilities and features that will have a strong impact on smartphone cameras of 2021.
Ultra-fast connection: 5G and Wi-Fi 6 401d6w
Like its predecessors, the Snapdragon 888 5G is a SoC, an acronym for System on Chip or “System on a chip”, in Portuguese translation. In practice, this means that the processor architecture encomes a series of components that, once assembled on a single chip, deliver more power and energy efficiency. This concept, by the way, applies very well to Qualcomm's new processor, since one of its novelties is to bring a modem 5G integrated more powerful and economical than the previous one.
This integration allows the Snapdragon 888 achieve, on a 5G network, s of up to 7,5Gbps and s up to 3Gbps, as well as being compatible with the various frequencies of the technology, both the fastest (mmWave) and the slowest (sub6). Showing that it is also prepared for a global implementation of 5G, the chip is still capable of sharing frequencies between 3G, 4G and 5G networks, thanks to DSS technology (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing), and is one of the few to the simultaneous use of two 5G networks (Dual-SIM 5G).
More important than that, perhaps, is the fact that it also s the technologies carrier aggregation e 5G standalone (5G SA). While the first allows the simultaneous use of multiple bands of 5G, something that increases transmission speeds, the second makes the chip compatible with the most significant revolution of 5G. Currently, most countries with 5G still rely on 4G infrastructure to operate it, with 5G stand-alone will work with completely new equipment and concepts.
It's the phase stand-alone of 5G that will allow most of the changes that we have in mind when we think of this technology, such as autonomous cars that communicate to regulate traffic, streaming of games without "lag” and much more capable artificial intelligences. With 5G SA, the latency time of connections can drop to 1ms, and the new chip is already prepared for that – even if the technology is not present even in countries that already operate 5G and, therefore, even more distant from realities such as Brazil.
Thanks to the union of all these technologies, the Snapdragon 888 is one of the only processors, to date, capable of connecting to any existing 5G network in the world, said Qualcomm.
Still in of connectivity, it was also announced that the Snapdragon 888 5G is compatible with Wi-Fi 6, ing up to 3,6Gbps transmissions and 6GHz connections (Wi-Fi 6E). O Bluetooth, in turn, moved past version 5.0, as it was in Snapdragon 865, to 5.2, gaining a dual set of antennas and, with that, promising more responsive connections and more faithful audio for headphones and other sound accessories.
Processing and Gaming 2i543r
Despite the enormous focus that Qualcomm gave to 5G, we know that every processor is made of numbers – metrics about its performance – and the Snapdragon 888 5G does not disappoint in this aspect either. According to the release information, the new chip has a U 25% faster than its predecessor, and a 35% increase in GPU. Also according to Qualcomm, this is the biggest leap in graphics performance ever seen in the transition from one generation of the 800 line to another.
In addition to the jump in numbers, Qualcomm also highlighted the chip's superpowers in games: depending on the title, it can reach up to 144 FPS, display games in HDR10 or even 4K resolution. These features, however, do not work simultaneously and each depends on the game in question to also them. In the image below, the manufacturer mentioned some of the games that are already compatible with the new technologies of the SD888.
For games, there are still the resources Quick Touch Games, which reduces the latency of screen touches by up to 20%, and the Variable Rate Shading, which renders the different elements of a game in more or less detail, promi to 30% more performance. In a racing game, for example, the cars will have their graphics prioritized, while other, less important points on the screen will have their quality reduced. The Snapdragon 888 is the primeiro mobile chip using the technology, inherited from the latest generation PCs and consoles.
The 35% increase in graphics performance is the biggest among generations of the 800 line, a sign that the Snapdragon 888 is an be considered especially by gamers.
In detail and in comparison with the previous chip (Snapdragon 865), the main specifications of the Snapdragon 888 include:
- 5nm lithograph, same as Apple M1, used in new iPhones and MacBooks;
- U octa-core Kryo 680 – 25% faster and 25% more efficient with one core Prime up to 2.84GHz, three cores performance up to 2.4GHz and another four efficiency-focused cores up to 1.8GHz;
- GPU Adreno 660 – 35% more powerful, 20% more economical and with features that promise to improve the uniformity of OLED screens and image reproduction;
- Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 – 70% more efficient and with the promise of full battery recharges (0-100%) in less than 15 minutes;
- Security features that include data isolation between different applications and profiles, as well as a cloud-based service that analyzes the health of the device and its network connections.
still about the gaming experience, Qualcomm also mentioned that, as it has been working on for the past few years, it has ensured that the Snapdragon 888 5G can perform demanding tasks for long periods without suffering from overheatings, especially in graphics processing. This is an important detail, because if we think that one of the main advances of the new chip is in the GPU, the lack of good thermal management could ruin the games, as well as the execution of high resolution content or FPSs.
Additionally, the company also announced that, thanks to 5G technology and gaming resources, devices that board the Snapdragon 888 will have an advantage when running games in the cloud, as the communication between the device and the servers of the platform streaming it will be much faster. Qualcomm even took this cue to announce that it is already working to bring xCloud, future platform streaming of Xbox games, for devices with the new chip.
Artificial Intelligence 4p4h6q
leaving for IA, another point frequently mentioned during the event, Qualcomm points out that the Snapdragon 888 5G has a new NPU (Neural Processing Unit), the Hexagon 780. on one SoC, this component works to integrate the device's GPU, U, memory and sensors operations. With the help of techniques machine-learning and APIs present in both software and hardware, the NPU It's what makes AI-powered features and apps like Google Assistant possible.
During the presentation, Qualcomm mentioned the possibility of removing or inserting entire objects in videos and photos, an example of an AI-based feature that can only be done by an extremely capable NPU such as the Hexagon 780.
Without an NPU, the U would have to divide its tasks between the applications run by the and these smart features, which normally operate in the background and require a lot of computation. Thanks to the Hexagon 780, however, the new Snapdragon 888 5G can run up to 26 trillion of operations per second (26 TOPS), a considerably higher number than the Snapdragon 865, 15 TOPS, and more than double the Apple A14-Bionic, 11 TOPS.
In practice, this means that the new chip can integrate much more information to understand contexts and perform intelligent tasks such as image recognition and audio-to-text transcription. While these functions are not new, a more capable NPU makes the processor more Management e autonomous, since the calculations are now made in a more economical component than the U, and without relying so much on cloud computing – which requires internet and, even because of that, can be slower.
Innovative camera features 6am17
Increasingly important in smartphones, cameras have also gained special attention in Qualcomm's new processor: according to the manufacturer, the Snapdragon 888 5G it's the company's first chip with a triple image signal processor (ISP) – and if that made you think it can capture with up to three cameras simultaneously, you're right. In total, the Qualcomm Spectra 580 can handle up to 2.7 gigapixels per second, which equates to approximately 3 4K HDR videos being recorded at the same time.
It's not common for someone to want to record in 4K HDR with the three cameras smartphone at once, but the ability to handle so much information gives this ISP a few tricks. It is possible, for example, for the smartphone to take 3 simultaneous photos of up to 28 megapixels without any delay, allowing you to choose the best framing, among the photos from the main cameras, wide and telephoto, after the photo is taken.
How the three cameras can stay working simultaneously, the transition between the lenses wide, main and telephoto in the camera interface will also be smoother. Likewise, HDR, which consists of simultaneously capturing multiple frames with different exposures, will be faster and more efficient in photos and videos, ing colors with depth of 10-bit. Compared to the industry standard 8-bit, the color spectrum now ed is much wider, with each photo or frame capable of representing up to 1 billion different colors.
In any case, it is necessary to that the final result of these innovations, especially in cameras, depends a lot on how each manufacturer decides to implement them in their smartphones – integrating, in the best possible way, the capabilities of the processor to the functions that they plan for the device. . Still, according to Qualcomm, the new ISP is 35% faster and houses multiple HDR sensors, which should significantly improve image capture and processing on devices with the new chip.
Thanks to the intelligence resources of the Snapdragon 888 5G, there is still the possibility that phones with the chip will have focus, exposure and white balance based on artificial intelligence. Other announced features were the capture of 4K videos with HDR also based on AI, the for sequential photos, of the type burst, up to 12 megapixels and at up to 120 frames per second, in addition to the possibility of shooting in HDR10 in HEIF format, which will bring us photos with high color depth and efficient sizes.
Finally and as if that weren't enough, the ISP Snapdragon 888 is the first in the world to Adobe's initiative for image verification. baptized as Content Authenticity Initiative – CAI, the proposal wants to create an encrypted signature for images, in order to be able to safely point out whether an image has been manipulated or not. The idea, in a broad sense, is to prevent the dissemination of false information through montages, making devices and software able to the integrity of any photo.
In practice and according to Qualcomm, from this universal protocol created in partnership with Adobe and other companies, including newspapers, the Snapdragon 888 will be able to check whether or not an image was taken by a camera, instead of digitally assembled.
Availability 5t444n
Without providing too many details, Qualcomm revealed that the first devices with the Snapdragon 888 5G must arrive at first quarter 2021. During the event, companies from a variety of industries, including manufacturers, operators, such as Verizon, and the natural language processing company (Natural Language Processing), Hugging Face, confirmed that they intend to work with the new chip. Below, check out the full list of confirmed partners so far:
- NTT DOCOMO
- hugging face
- Sony Mobile
- ASUS
- Black Shark
- OnePlus
- Lenovo
- LG
- Meizu
- Motorola
- nubian
- Realme
- OPPO
- Sharp
- Living
- ZTE
- Xiaomi
All Snapdragon 888 5G Specs 1m415k
| U | Cryo 680, octa-core 1x 2.84GHz (1MB L2 – ARM Cortex X1); 3x 2.4GHz (512KB L2 – ARM Cortex A78); 4x 1.8GHz (128KB L2 – ARM Cortex A55); 64-bit architecture |
| GPU | Adreno 660 Up to 144Hz in QHD+ resolution; Up to 60Hz in 4K resolution; Variable Rate Shading HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, Dolby Vision; Up to 10 bits of color; Rec2020; Volumetric Video Playback, 8K 360 VR; OpenCL 2.0 FP, OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1 and DX12 |
| NPU | Hexagon 780 DSP Up to 26 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) 2nd Generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub; Shared memory between audio and video processors, connections and other sensors |
| ISP | Spectra 580 Until 27 gigapixel simultaneous (3 28 megapixel photos each or 3 4K HDR videos); CAI compatible – Content Authenticity Initiative; AI-based focus, exposure and white balance; AI-based 10-bit HDR video; 10-bit HDR in HEIF format Triple 14-bit ISP; Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, HEVC, HLG; Rec. 2020, H.265, VPU and VP9 ed resolutions Dual Camera, MFNR, ZSL, 30fps: up to 64 MP; Triple Camera, MFNR,, 30fps, ZSL: up to 28 MP; Single Camera, MFNR, ZSL, 30fps: up to 84 MP; Single Camera: up to 200 MP; 8K video at 30fps; 4K video at 120fps; HD video at 960fps |
| Lithography | FinFET 5 nanometers |
| Modem | X60 5G Modem-RF 7,5GBps (5G ), 3GBps (5G ); 5G dual-SIM, DSS, Carrier Aggregation with FDD and TDD; 5G standalone; 5G mmWave: 800MHz, 2x2 MIMO; 5G sub6: 200MHz, 4×4 MIMO; 4G LTE with CBRS; HSPA, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, CDMA 1x, EV-DO, GSM/EDGE |
| Adjustable | FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6 (up to 3.6Gbps), Wi-Fi 6E (6GHz); 802.11a/b/g/n; MU-MIMO, 160MHz channel, OFDMA, 4K QAM; wpa3; Bluetooth 5.2, Bluetooth LE, aptX; NFC; USB 3.1 and USB-C |
| Geolocation | Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS; dual-frequency GNSS; NavlC; GPS, QZSS, SBAS |
| Availability | 1th quarter of 2021 |
With information from: Qualcomm
