Qualcomm at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Day event in Singapore has announced the two new processors for smartphones, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 and Snapdragon 630 mobile platforms. These add up to the Snapdragon 600 series and this is the first time that Qualcomm is using the Spectra 160 Dual-camera ISP for the 600-series of chipsets.
The Snapdragon 660 and 630 have an 8-core CPU with the big.LITTLE configuration and while the 630 has 8 Cortex A53 cores, the 660 has 8 Kryo 260 cores, which were a part of the 2017 flagship processor, the Snapdragon 835. The chips will now also support 2×2 Wi-Fi connectivity and Bluetooth 5.0, which was a part of only the Samsung Galaxy S8 for now.
Apart from the great new features, the Snapdragon 660 and 630 will support Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0 that is said to offer 5 hours of talk time with 5 minutes of charge. There is also support for Quick Charge 3.0 and 2.0.
Here is the quick look at the specifications of the Snapdragon 660 chipset.
- Octa-Core – Quad 2.2GHz Kryo 260 + Quad 1.8GHz Kryo 260 CPUs
- 14nm FinFET process technology
- Up to 8GB memory, 2×16 LPDDR4x 1866MHz, eMMC, UFS, USB 3.1
- Integrated X12 LTE, Qualcomm All Mode with support for all seven cellular modes, and support for: VoLTE with SRVCC to 3G and 2G, HD and Ultra HD Voice (EVS), CSFB to 3G and 2G, Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) with LTE
call continuity - Cat 12/13 speeds of up to 600 Mbps down/150 Mbps up via 3x20MHz downlink, 2X20MHz uplink
- Support for LTE Broadcast, LTE Dual SIM, VoLTE, Wi-Fi calling with LTE call continuity, HD and Ultra HD Voice (EVS)
- Qualcomm Adreno 512 GPU
- Hexagon 680 DSP with Hexagon vector extensions
- Qualcomm Spectra 160 ISP – Up to 24 MP single camera, Up to 16 MP dual camera
- Qualcomm Clear Sight camera features, Hybrid Autofocus, Optical
Zoom, Zero Shutter Lag - Supports up to Quad High Definition (2560×1600) displays
- 4K capture at 30fps, Hardware HEVC (H.265) encode and decode
- Dual-band 802.11ac with MU-MIMO 2×2, GPS, Glonass, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS, and SBAS and Bluetooth 5
- Qualcomm Quick Charge 4 technology
Here are some of the specifications of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 platform.
- Octa-Core – Quad 2.2GHz Cortex A53 + Quad 1.8GHz Cortex A53 CPUs
- 14nm process technology
- Up to 8GB memory, 2×16 LPDDR4x 1333 MHz, eMMC, UFS, USB 3.1
- Integrated X12 LTE, Qualcomm All Mode with support for all seven cellular modes, and support for: VoLTE with SRVCC to 3G and 2G, HD and Ultra HD Voice (EVS), CSFB to 3G and 2G, Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) with LTE
call continuity - Cat 12/13 speeds of up to 600 Mbps down/150 Mbps up via 3x20MHz downlink, 2X20MHz uplink
- Qualcomm Adreno 508 GPU
- Hexagon 680 DSP with Always aware technology
- Qualcomm Spectra 160 ISP – Up to 24 MP single camera, Up to 13 MP dual camera
- Qualcomm Clear Sight camera features, Hybrid Autofocus, Optical
Zoom, Zero Shutter Lag - Supports up to QXGA (1920 x 1200) displays
- 4K capture at 30fps, Hardware HEVC (H.265) encode and decode
- Dual-band 802.11ac with MU-MIMO 1×1, Glonass, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS, and SBAS and Bluetooth 5
- Qualcomm Quick Charge 4 technology
The Snapdragon 660 is a good chip for smartphones with 2K resolution (2560 x 1440 pixels) display, while the 630 comes good for the 1080p displays, even though the support doesn’t end there it can still work with 2K displays. Some of the features that flagship processors have and are now being brought into these two platforms include the Always-on technology, dual-camera support, machine learning, and better processing of the photos.
The two platforms will start shipping in the second quarter of 2017, with the Snapdragon 630 being available in May and devices powered by it to be available in Q3 2017.
