Qualcomm on Tuesday unveiled its new premium application processor dubbed Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
The new chip marks a name change as the US chip giant previously called its premium APs Snapdragon 8xx.
Qualcomm was already supplying the new processor to major smartphones makers that will likely unveil new smartphones with the chip during the first half of 2022.
The company said it had supplied Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 to Black Shark, Honor, iQOO, Motorola, Nubia, Oneplus, Oppo, Realme, Redme, Sharp, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE.
Though Samsung wasn’t on the list, it is highly likely that the South Korean tech giant’s Galaxy S22 series and other phones will be using the new Qualcomm chip.
Qualcomm said it was manufacturing Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 using a 4-nanometer (nm) node. It is likely using both Samsung Foundry and TSMC and foundries for the new chip.
Being 4nm, the new chip boasts increased performance and lower power consumption compared to 5nm chips, the US chip giant also said.
According to Qualcomm, the Kryo CPU on the new processor boasts 20% increased performance and 30% increased power efficiency compared to its predecessor.
The new Adreno GPU is also 30% faster and has 25% increased power efficiency compared to its predecessor, Qualcomm said.
The new Gen 7 AI engine on Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is also four times faster in calculation and has 1.7 times improved power efficiency compared to its predecessor as well, the company said.
The image signal processor supports 18-bit and can transfer 3.2Gigapixel of data per minute, which allows it to film 8K, high dynamic range videos.
Qualcomm also talked up the new X65 5G modem on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
The new modem chip is the first to meet the 3GPP Release 16 standard and can group sub-6GHz and mmWave spectrums.
It boasts 10Gbps in download speed and 3.5Gbps in upload speed.
Meanwhile, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 also supports Bluetooth 5.2 and has apX wireless Bluetooth audio technology that supports CD-levels of sound quality, Qualcomm said.
