At the Snapdragon Summit, Chris Patrick, SVP and GM, Mobile Handset, Qualcomm, unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Qualcomm’s flagship SoC for premium smartphones, and the successor of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1.
System Performance: Kryo CPU Cluster
Let’s begin with system efficiency, the usual sizzling matter for any new era of processors. Qualcomm has improved all efficiency points over final 12 months’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
The new Kryo CPU cluster is now primarily based on one ARM Cortex X3 (Prime, 3.19 GHz), four efficiency cores (2.8 GHz), and three effectivity cores (2.0 GHz).
Last 12 months’s era featured one ARM Cortex X2 (Prime, 3 GHz), three Cortex A710 (2.5 GHz), and 4 Cortex A510 (1.8 GHz), appropriate with the ARMv9 Gen 1 CPU structure.
The additional efficiency core and the brand new ARMv9 Gen 2 structure drive a lot of the efficiency enhance, whereas the minimal improve in CPU frequency additionally gives an additional nudge.
Qualcomm estimates this new CPU cluster to be 35% sooner and as much as 40% extra power-efficient than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the earlier market chief for flagship Android smartphones.
The 40% power-efficiency quantity is surprisingly excessive, and Qualcomm claims it’s because of the Kryo CPU’s new microarchitecture. Without a clearer rationalization, I’ll assume it’s primarily based on one of the best case examine, and upcoming benchmarks may shed extra mild too.
The new Kryo CPU options an 8MB L3 cache, a 33% improve over the 6MB L3 cache within the earlier era. Augmenting the cache dimension helps to keep away from costly DDR reminiscence entry at any time when attainable.
The new chip affords assist for LP-DDR5x reminiscence as much as 4200 MHz and with as much as 16 GB of reminiscence density.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine – Snapdragon Smart
One of the highest areas “that will be critical to Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is artificial intelligence. This platform is purpose-built for AI. […] At the heart of our AI experience is the Qualcomm AI Engine [which] is made of several technologies including Adreno GPU, Kryo, Sensing Hub, Memory, and Hexagon” stated Francisco Cheng, Senior Managing Director, Product Marketing, Qualcomm, throughout our briefing.
Across all applied sciences concerned in processing AI fashions, the Qualcomm AI Engine eighth era improved the efficiency by as much as 4.35X and the performance-per-watt by 60% over the seventh era.
Hexagon, AI co-processor
Qualcomm defines Hexagon as a “fused AI accelerator architecture,” which means that the Hexagon logic block is product of a number of sorts of computing models. Qualcomm made a number of enhancements all through Hexagon, and probably the most notables are the 2X dimension improve of the Tensor accelerator and the addition of a devoted energy supply system.
The main modifications in Hexagon had been made to deal with the flexibility to run extra complicated neural networks, significantly round transformer networks, to ship, amongst different issues, multi-language translation in real-time.
Qualcomm’s Micro Tile Inferencing is a brand new method that works by splicing neural networks into ‘tiles’ that will probably be dispatched to obtainable compute models in Hexagon. Qualcomm didn’t go into a lot element, however in our expertise, tiling knowledge is usually utilized to extend parallelism (course of the tiles in parallel to maximise {hardware} utilization) and probably improve cache coherency and reminiscence bandwidth. Both could make a big impression on general efficiency.
Last 12 months, Qualcomm added the assist of blended precision INT8+INT16, (automated change between INT8 and INT16 precisions) to its non-automatic blended precision know-how, named “all precisions support” (INT8, INT16, FP16).
In the brand new AI Engine, Qualcomm added the assist of 4-bit Integer precision (INT4) within the “all precisions” mode, so choose AI algorithms and neural community fashions can course of sooner throughout the Hexagon compute models. On high of that, INT4 permits Hexagon to run extra fashions concurrently (parallel computing).
Each AI mannequin may use a special degree of precision, as some AI-driven duties will ship ok outcomes utilizing an INT4 low degree of precision for sooner processing, whereas others could require increased ranges of precision resembling INT8, INT16, FP16, and FP32 (Floating Point saved on 16 or 32 bits).
Qualcomm stated that the brand new AI Engine makes use of INT4 in “cinematic mode” for real-time blurring of the background (video bokeh), with no seen distinction in picture high quality. Previously related AI fashions used INT8.
4th era Sensing Hub with a dual-AI processor
The Sensing Hub is the unbiased low-power multi-core logic unit that capabilities when the remainder of the SoC is asleep. It processes in real-time the contextual knowledge streams resembling voice, audio, sensors, and connectivity.
Last 12 months, Qualcomm launched a brand new function for the third era Sensing Hub, the Always-on Camera, which has now develop into the Always Sensing Camera. The Always-on Camera allowed the telephone to mechanically lock when the person doesn’t take a look at it or get up every time the person look on the sleeping telephone.
With the brand new function, the digital camera can acknowledge and course of a QR code positioned on the optical module when the smartphone is asleep (+show off), with the earlier processor, the telephone needed to be turned on to handle a QR code.
Addition of a second AI processor with 50% extra reminiscence
Qualcomm has doubled the Sensing Hub’s AI computing capability by including a second AI processor. On high of that, 50% extra inner reminiscence is now obtainable. The additional reminiscence permits the system to run new AI fashions which had been beforehand unavailable but in addition higher variations of those that existed earlier than.
Qualcomm talked about 17 AI-based actions tracked by the brand new Sensing Hub, and those which caught our consideration are [human] Activity Recognition, Voice Activation, and Eye-Tracking.
Hexagon Direct Link and Cognitive ISP
Qualcomm launched Hexagon Direct Link for the primary time, a function that gives devoted bodily communication channels (bi-directional buses, in {hardware} lingo) to different logic blocks such because the GPU, the reminiscence, and the Spectra ISP.
Alongside Hexagon Direct Link, the chip producer introduced its first Cognitive ISP, a compute unit positioned inside Hexagon that works in reference to the Spectra ISP for sooner processing of the AI-driven imaging options.
Snapdragon Sight: upgraded digital camera efficiency with Cognitive-ISP
Cognitive ISP for higher digital camera efficiency
The Cognitive ISP, positioned within the Hexagon AI co-processor, communicates in real-time with the Spectra ISP that processes the pixels captured by the digital camera. The Cognitive ISP executes the Multiple Semantic Segmentation AI mannequin on the photographs despatched by the Spectra ISP and tells the Spectra to use completely different image-enhancing filters on the completely different recognized zones of the picture (as much as eight segments).
The Cognitive ISP can find boundaries and acknowledge objects in a picture resembling faces, our bodies, pores and skin, garments, sky, crops, flowers, cats, seashores, buildings, and extra.
This new function, named Realtime Segmentation Filter, permits the system to exactly alter colours, contrasts, and any points of images to every section of the picture, in real-time. Developers can choose completely different configurations and filters.
In different phrases, the Cognitive ISP is the mind, and the Spectra ISP is the muscle.
The new structure permits the digital camera system to obtain the segmentation filter so much sooner than earlier than, and processes AI filters in real-time, even earlier than the person presses the seize button, in response to Qualcomm.
Graphics and Gaming – Snapdragon Elite Gaming
At the Snapdragon Summit, Chris Patrick, SVP and GM, Mobile Handset, Qualcomm, stated that the brand new Adreno graphics processing unit (GPU) brings a 25% improve in graphics rendering efficiency than the earlier era whereas delivering 45% higher energy effectivity.
This means the baseline efficiency will improve for practically all apps that rely on the GPU, like video games.
Adreno GPU Display
The Adreno subvisual system additionally contains the show, and Qualcomm introduced the assist of HDR Vivid, a brand new HDR normal launched in March 2021 by the China UHD Video Industry Alliance (CUVA). HDR Vivid and Adaptive HDR are the newest additions to the opposite codecs already supported by Adreno GPU Display, together with HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision HDR.
Adreno GPU for video games
Adreno GPU would be the first cell platform to assist Unreal Engine 5’s Metahuman, a framework that enables recreation builders to create ultra-realistic people programmatically. Unreal Engine 5’s Metahuman characters had been beforehand solely usable in desktop video games. That’s a testomony to Qualcomm’s graphics software program’s maturity.
The new-gen Adreno helps Vulkan 1.3 and delivers a 30% Vulkan efficiency enhance in comparison with the earlier era.
Real-time hardware-accelerated ray tracing
Hardware ray tracing was the star function of the present, because it pushes realism in video games to the subsequent degree. Bringing real-time ray tracing to cell gaming is an enormous deal, as it’s compute-intensive, and solely highly effective gaming rigs can render the extra superior ray tracing strategies at excessive framerate, like international illumination for the entire 3D scene.
On Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, recreation builders can combine fundamental ray tracing strategies resembling delicate shadows and correct reflections. The conventional rendering strategies resembling shadow maps yielded onerous shadows as a result of they weren’t practically as correct in comparison with ray-traced shadows. Previous reflections rendering strategies resembling screen-space reflections had been restricted and couldn’t replicate an object that was off-screen. Ray tracing can.
In brief, ray tracing mimics the sunshine’s conduct in the true world by following the trail of sunshine in a 3D world from the digital camera by the objects within the scene and to an eventual mild supply.
Dave Durnil, Global Head of Gaming & Snapdragon Studios, Qualcomm, confirmed us a cool demo from the favored recreation Justice Online Mobile with the ray tracing on and off. We may clearly see the distinction, with ray tracing, the reflections within the water and on the curved objects had been reasonable and we may observe the delicate shadows.
He instructed us that War Thunder Edge and Blue Reflection video games for Android will function Adreno-accelerated ray tracing.
Snapdragon Sound: dynamic spatial audio with head monitoring
Sarah McMurray, Staff Manager, Product Marketing, Qualcomm, launched Spatial Audio with dynamic head-tracking, a brand new function of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that delivers extra reasonable 3D sound with low motion-to-sound latency. Spatial Audio is a know-how devoted to immersive gaming and multimedia experiences.
Connectivity: 5G AI and Wi-Fi 7 assist
5G Modem-RF System
The 5G connectivity’s enhancements revolve round three new options. The first is the mixing of a “5G AI Processor” compute unit contained in the 5G system. This primarily helps with “tuning” the 5G modem parameters to acquire optimum efficiency in any state of affairs. It is the closest you may get to having a (human) modem engineer tweaking issues always. AI may additionally assist with sign error correction to keep away from pointless knowledge re-transmission.
Next, the 4X service aggregation additional enlarges the info pipeline obtainable for 5G communications, leading to increased peak downloads (a formidable 10 Gbps).
Finally, it’s attainable to make use of two 5G SIM on the identical time, because of the 5G Dual SIM Dual Active function. It opens the door to much more knowledge parallelism, however you may find yourself paying two subscriptions in fact.
FastConnect Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth connectivity system
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 comes with Wi-Fi 7, the upcoming normal for residence connectivity. Qualcomm makes use of extraordinarily superior strategies resembling high-band multi-link to make use of as a lot of the obtainable spectrum as attainable.
The firm says its Wi-Fi can attain 5.8 Gbps and, extra importantly, maintain a latency beneath two milliseconds in a sustained method. Low latency may persuade wired ethernet customers to lastly change to Wi-Fi.
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