Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 Bring Large Improvements To The Masses

Qualcomm is updating what was its Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 400 sequence in preparation for 2023. These new Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 chips are destined to energy mid-range and entry-level smartphones, respectively.

It is a “generational” structure improve, and each the logic and the manufacturing have vastly improved, together with efficiency and energy effectivity, particularly for Snapdragon 6 Gen 1.

Snapdragon 6 Gen 1

This chip is manufactured with a 4nm semiconductor course of, though it’s not clear if Samsung or TSMC is the foundry behind it. Qualcomm has pursued a diversification technique of its provide chain in order that it could possibly be both, however we don’t know for now. For now, the momentum is shifting in direction of TSMC, nonetheless.

Qualcomm has doubled the variety of high-performance A78 CPU cores, so you need to anticipate a lot larger peak CPU efficiency. The firm talks a few 40% enchancment, which could be very important.

In flip, the variety of power-efficiency cores has gone from 6 to 4, however we’re waging that the change is not going to have a sizeable influence on battery life as a result of the 4 cores ought to be capable to deal with background and minute duties with ease.

A 35% graphics efficiency can be within the playing cards, however the particulars on the GPU are few. It appears to be a cost-reduced spinoff of the most recent graphics structure, however extra technical data may be out there later.

Qualcomm upgraded the built-in modem to the Qualcomm X62 (from the X51), which gives many options within the dearer X65 modem. However, its carrier-aggregation efficiency is barely decrease, in all probability to cut back price.

The Snapdragon 6 Gen 1’s Spectra picture processor (ISP) now helps 4K/30 HDR video, which was not beforehand out there in that market.

Snapdragon 4 Gen 1

The Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 succeeds the Snapdragon 480 and brings extra modest efficiency enhancements. Qualcomm mentions +15% in CPU pace and 10% in graphics efficiency. Most of the CPU pace enhance in all probability is because of upgrading to an A78 core design (the A76), because the RAM bandwidth is equivalent.

Again, there are few particulars on the graphics structure, not even the frequencies. The solely trace that it’s a new structure is the presence of VRS (Variable Rate Shading), which we defined in our Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 overview.

This {hardware} platform is manufactured utilizing a 6nm semiconductor course of from TSCM, which is considerably smaller than the earlier 8nm course of at Samsung Semiconductors. As traditional, this can assist the cost-efficiency of those chips, giving Qualcomm extra pricing flexibility.

The wi-fi specs haven’t modified a lot, however it’s nonetheless a 5G chip, and Bluetooth has gone to five.2 from 5.1 beforehand.

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