Since the launch of the Snapdragon platform for the new era of mobile computing in 2007 and the release of the world’s first mobile processor QSD8250 clocked at 1Ghz that year, Qualcomm’s “Snapdragon” platform has gone through more than ten years. During this period, the company also formed 8 series, 7 series, 6 series, 4 series and 2 series and other product lines covering different application markets.

Among them, the company’s flagship Snapdragon 8 series chips have attracted the most attention.

Based on past experience, almost every generation of Qualcomm’s 8-series chips will become the choice of most Android flagship phones in the same period the following year. For example, the company’s previous-generation flagship Snapdragon 865 performed very well in the market. Last night, Qualcomm brought a new flagship mobile processing platform – Snapdragon 888, a product that is completely different from the previous product naming method.

Readers who are familiar with the naming rules of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 series products should know that according to the past rules, this series of new products of Qualcomm should be called Snapdragon 875, but now they use a new name. Considering the importance of “8” in China and the importance of the Chinese market to Qualcomm, the naming of Qualcomm’s new flagship has attracted everyone’s interest.

　In an interview with foreign media, Qualcomm also responded to this question:

　　“8 has always been a special number for Snapdragon. For more than a decade, the number 8 has stood for “premiun” in the Qualcomm Snapdragon series, and the Snapdragon 8 series is also our premium mobile platform. On this platform, we Will showcase our latest technological innovations that will power the next generation of mobile experiences.

Year after year, these advancements made by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 series not only lead the Snapdragon series, but also the number one in the mobile industry. This year in particular, 5G is rapidly expanding around the world and creating new experiences and new opportunities that far exceed the industry’s expectations. Instead, they hope to provide these 5G experiences to more consumers around the world through the Snapdragon platform.

The number 8 is also the lucky number in the world. For some, it signifies infinity, success, or inner wisdom, while for others, luck. For example, in India the number 8 is called Ashtha, Asta or Ashta in Sanskrit and is the number of wealth and wealth. In China, numerology 888 represents triple luck. “

It can be seen from the above statement that Qualcomm has high hopes for the prospects of this chip, especially its performance in the Chinese market.

Although Qualcomm’s new generation of flagship has changed the previous naming method. But as always, this chip will surely be the first choice for Android flagships in the coming year. Xiaomi founder Lei Jun can’t wait to announce that the company’s next-generation flagship based on the Snapdragon 888 will be launched soon, exemplified by this.

Coming to the specific specifications of the chip, according to Lekha Motiwala, director of product management at Qualcomm Technologies, as a new flagship processor, the Snapdragon 888 integrates Qualcomm’s third-generation 5G modem and radio frequency system, the Snapdragon X60, which supports global millimeter waves. And all major frequency bands of Sub-6GHz, as well as 5G carrier aggregation, global multi-SIM card function, independent (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) networking modes and dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS), it is a truly globally compatible 5G platform.

I remember when Qualcomm announced at last year’s summit that the Snapdragon 865 would be a processor platform with an external baseband chip, the industry launched extensive discussions on this. Some people even think that Qualcomm’s choice is a manifestation of poor technology, but this time Qualcomm’s release directly makes the above remarks self-defeating.

It needs to be mentioned here that the A14 released by Apple earlier is rumored to use Qualcomm’s previous generation baseband Snapdragon X55. Why Apple made this decision, we can not be elegant. But in my opinion, this has a lot to do with how Qualcomm designed the X60 and X55.

In February this year, when Qualcomm released the Snapdragon X60, it emphasized that this is an end-to-end solution. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon X60 is a complete system-level solution, including the SDX60 baseband, RF transceiver, RF Front-end, mmWave antenna modules designed to provide operators with great flexibility to maximize their available spectrum resources. Qualcomm has achieved the aggregation of the Sun-6GHz frequency band and the millimeter wave frequency band in the Snapdragon X60 Shanghai. As can be seen from Apple’s mobile phone disassembly, there are many other options for their RF front-end, so I guess this is Apple’s decision to increase the flexibility of its RF front-end. Of course, it is just a guess, for your reference, it does not mean that it is correct.

In addition to this widely concerned baseband integration, many aspects such as the manufacturing process, CPU, GPU and AI of Qualcomm’s new mobile platform are the focus of everyone’s attention. But in last night’s announcement, Qualcomm did not disclose that information. Based on past experience, Qualcomm will disclose this information in detail at the Snapdragon Technology Summit to be held in the next few days.

But Lekha Motiwala points out that Qualcomm has also stepped up its investment in computational photography with the Snapdragon 888 in design, making the smartphone a pro-quality camera. According to reports, Qualcomm Spectra? ISP supports faster processing speed of one gigapixel level, users can take photos and videos at a speed of processing 2.7 billion pixels per second, that is, capture 120 frames per second and each frame is 12 million pixels, and Compared with the previous generation platform, the processing speed has been increased by up to 35%.

Lekha Motiwala also talked about the enhancements that Qualcomm’s new flagship brings to the Snapdragon Elite Gaming. He said that Qualcomm has brought dozens of innovative technologies pioneered by the mobile industry to smartphones in this field over the past few years, including GPU driver updates, client-level forward rendering, and rendering of ultra-smooth games up to 144 frames. . On the Snapdragon 888, they integrated the third-generation Snapdragon Elite Gaming, bringing the most significant performance improvement in the history of Qualcomm Adreno? GPU. According to foreign media, the new GPU on Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 is Adreno 660, and its rendering speed is 35% higher than that of the lead generation.

The breakthrough in AI is another new highlight of the Qualcomm Snapdragon flagship. According to Qualcomm, on the Snapdragon 888, they achieved an unprecedented AI performance improvement. This is mainly due to the company’s new sixth-generation Qualcomm AI engine. According to reports, this new AI engine includes a newly designed Qualcomm Hexagon™ processor, which has achieved a dramatic improvement in AI performance and energy efficiency compared with the previous generation platform, reaching an astonishing 26 trillion operations per second (26 TOPS). . Qualcomm’s second-generation sensor hub further enhances the platform’s performance levels, integrating an always-on low-power AI processor to support intuitive interactions and smart features.

Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon also said at the summit that creating a redefined flagship experience requires a powerful innovation engine. Qualcomm has been able to set this benchmark primarily because their mobile platforms are based on decades of advanced research and development. From Amon’s introduction, we can see that Qualcomm’s R&D investment in various fields of mobile technology has reached 66 billion US dollars. The R&D field also covers modems, radio frequency systems, artificial intelligence, intelligent image processing and advanced multimedia technologies.

“The combination of R&D investment, scale, expertise and ecosystem collaboration has made Qualcomm synonymous with flagship. It also allows us to take the lead in completely redefining the user experience”, stressed Cristiano Amon. According to the data provided by him, the global 5G smartphone shipments will reach 450 million to 550 million units in 2021, and by 2022 , this number will exceed 750 million.

“Snapdragon has been defining and redefining flagships for the entire industry. The powerful and efficient Snapdragon mobile platform continues to deliver cutting-edge performance to our global customers,” Cristiano Amon concluded.