On the morning of December 6th US time, Qualcomm’s annual flagship mobile platform, Snapdragon 845, was grandly announced at the second Qualcomm Snapdragon Technology Summit. Since Qualcomm launched the first smartphone processor Snapdragon S1 in 2007, we have witnessed every breakthrough in Snapdragon’s growth over the past decade. As Snapdragon’s flagship for the past decade, Snapdragon 845 has received even more attention. It is understood that the Snapdragon 845 is a new generation flagship processor launched by Qualcomm over three years ago. Alex Katouzian, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Mobile Business at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., stated that the process of continuously testing hardware and software with partners and discussing market changes with ecosystem partners, coupled with thousands of hours of testing, took more than three years. We have a 2-year pregnancy period longer than the longest pregnant mammal, the blue whale
Compared to the 835, the Snapdragon 845 has improved to varying degrees in five major directions: immersive experience, artificial intelligence AI, security, connectivity, and performance. Qualcomm officially stated that the Snapdragon 845 mobile platform is designed for technology enthusiasts and is aimed at top tier flagship mobile devices, supporting various forms of terminals including smartphones, XR headsets, always connected PCs, and more. At present, the Snapdragon 845 mobile platform has already sent samples to customers, and commercial terminals equipped with this platform are expected to start shipping in early 2018.
First of all, let’s take a look at the basic performance of Snapdragon 845: Snapdragon 835 adopts the second-generation Samsung 10nm LPP FINFET process, with four performance cores and four energy efficiency cores. The KRYO385 architecture has a terrifying 2.8GHz main frequency for the large core and 1.8GHz main frequency for the small core. Each kernel has a dedicated L2 cache, and the eight cores share 2MB L3 cache. In addition, Snapdragon 835 upgraded its GPU to Adreno 630, but the official data has not been released. Compared to Adreno 540, Snapdragon 835 can improve performance by 30% and reduce power consumption by 30%.
Built in X20 LTE Modem, capable of achieving a maximum downlink rate of 1.2Gbps. In terms of ISP, Snapdragon 845 has been upgraded to Spectra 280 ISP, supporting 720p@480Fps Slow motion video. And in Snapdragon 845, the Hexagon 685 DSP is combined with CPU and GPU to form an artificial intelligence system. And Snapdragon 845 also integrates a Secure Processing unit to ensure the security of the phone, providing biometric recognition including fingerprints, iris, voice, and face. The above is the basic information of Snapdragon 845.
The Snapdragon 845 mobile platform adopts Samsung’s second-generation 10nm process technology. The mobile platform introduces a new Qualcomm’s third-generation Kryo 385 8-core CPU, with a maximum main frequency of 2.8GHz, a 30% increase compared to the previous generation, and an overall performance improvement of 25%. At the same time, it has Adreno 360 visual processing subsystem, Hexagon 685 DSP, Adreno 630, Spectra 280 ISP, and in conjunction with Qualcomm’s latest fast charging technology Quick Charge 4+, the battery level can range from 0 to 50% in just 15 minutes.
Snapdragon 845 integrates Qualcomm’s second-generation gigabit modem X20 LTE with a maximum download speed of 1.2Gbps, supports up to five 20 MHz Carrier aggregation, licensed auxiliary access (LAA), dual card dual VoLTE, and 4×4 MIMO on up to three convergence carriers; Supports advanced 60GHz 802.11ad Wi Fi; Integrate 802.11ac Wi Fi and Bluetooth 5, among which 802.11ac Wi Fi can achieve up to 16 times faster connection settings compared to previous generation products; Dual frequency concurrency (DBS) supports continuously expanding application combinations; And 30% increase in operational level Wi Fi network capacity utilization.
The biggest highlight of Snapdragon 845 lies in the upgrade of immersive experience, AI, independent security unit SPU, and other aspects.
In terms of architecture, Snapdragon 845 still continues the naming of KRYO, upgrading from KRYO 280 to KRYO 385, with 4+4 eight cores and a main frequency of 2.8GHz for the large core. The large core supports three transmissions, so everyone speculates that KRYO 385 is based on the latest generation of ARM’s A75 deep modification, while the small core may be based on the A55 deep modification. In fact, ARM has officially launched the “Build on ARM Cortex Technology” technology, which allows suppliers to modify the public architecture according to their own needs. For example, manufacturers can customize the size of instruction windows to increase IPC according to their own needs, but decoder width or execution pipelines are beyond the scope of modification. This semi customized design allows manufacturers to differentiate their products from the ARM public version. Therefore, there is no need to dwell on the so-called “magic reform”, it is all in one continuous line.
Qualcomm stated that it entered the field of deep learning very early, and Snapdragon 845 is already the third generation artificial intelligence platform, with an overall performance improvement of three times compared to the previous generation. Huawei and Apple both adopt ASIC methods for implementation, and the Kirin 970 integrates NPU dedicated hardware processing units. Qualcomm’s distributed architecture based neural network processing engine (SNPE) can run on every unit of the Snapdragon heterogeneous platform, such as CPU, GPU, DSP, etc. Qualcomm believes that providing more flexible deep learning based on the characteristics of mobile terminals, which can call various processing units, is a better choice. In addition, Qualcomm believes that deep learning is not a high-end product, and it is also available in mid to low-end products. For example, the Snapdragon 600 series chips also have deep learning capabilities, but the Snapdragon 845 is equipped with some of the latest features.https://www.stoneitech.com/
