Inside Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865
Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon 865 smartphone chip will support 5G, certainly. But more practical features will probably affect phone users in more immediate ways, such as 200Mp still photos, 4K HDR/8K video capture with optional portrait mode and Dolby Vision support, dynamic lighting options for mobile gaming, and real-time audio translation.
Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 855 a year ago, and unveiled its successors – the Snapdragon 865, the Snapdragon 765, and the Snapdragon 765G – in December at the company’s Snapdragon Technology Summit in Maui, Hawaii. Qualcomm dove deep into what phone makers and end users can expect from its new processors. Improvements to each of its cores – the new Kryo 585 CPU, the Adreno 650 GPU, the Spectra 480 image signal processor, the Sensing Hub, and the X55 5G modem – will all add new capabilities to phones.
Many of the most popular premium smartphones are built upon Snapdragon, including flagships from Google, Samsung and OnePlus.
What’s inside the Snapdragon 865
Below is a high-level overview of the Snapdragon 865, which will be manufactured on a 7nm process like its predecessor. (The 865 uses TSMC’s 7nm process, while the 765 is manufactured on Samsung’s 7nm process.) Some of the basics, such as the GPU speed, are still not being disclosed. We’ll go into more of what features these will enable afterward. Keep in mind, however, that some of these capabilities are theoretical. In the case of 5G, for example, certainly don’t expect the 7.5Gb/s download speeds Qualcomm is promising.
Kryo 585
