Qualcomm has just announced the Snapdragon 855, its new mobile platform that’s designed to deliver 5G connectivity. The new mobile solution which is also known internally as the sm8150, will be making its way to new flagship smartphones beginning next year.
At the moment, Qualcomm has only provided surface-level details of the new mobile platform. Similar to Apple’s A12 and Huawei’s Kirin 980 processors, the new Snapdragon 855 will be manufactured on a 7nm process which makes it more efficient than their current 10nm based Snapdragon 845.
In terms of connectivity, Qualcomm claims that this will be the first mobile platform to support gigabit speeds across 5G, LTE and WiFi. Commercial 5G testing will be rolling out in 2019 with mobile devices and network launches taking place in North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia and China. 5G connectivity on mobile devices will be made possible with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 5G modem and QTM052 mmWave antenna modules.
The new Snapdragon 855 will also feature Qualcomm’s 4th generation multi-core AI engine that promises 3X the AI performance compared to the current Snapdragon 845. It also features the first Computer Vision (CV) ISP which allows is dedicated
The new platform also promises better gaming experiences with its Snapdragon Elite Gaming feature. So far there are no details on the CPU and GPU specs including the type of cores used. Qualcomm is expected to reveal more info in the next day of its tech summit.
During the event, Justin Denison, the SVP for mobile product strategy and marketing for Samsung Electronics America had mentioned that they will bring the first flagship 5G smartphone in the US in the first half of 2019. This is likely to be the new Galaxy S10 and it will utilise Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 855 mobile platform with the 5G X50 modem for the US market.
