The event kicked off with Cristiano Amon, president at Qualcomm, talking about new things that the company brought to the mobile space, and how its premium 8-series mobile platforms have played a critical role in next generation devices. Of course, 5G has also played a big role, with over 700 5G designs launched or in development with Snapdragon and over 95 operators with commercial 5G networks in the first 18 months. There are over 130 operators investing in 5G mmWave technology.
Christian Amon also noted that we can expect 450 to 550 million 5G smartphones in 2021, and over 750 million in 2022.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G SoC brings a new era for mobile
Unveiled at the Snapdragon Tech Summit Digital 2020 by Alex Katouzian, senior vice president and general manager of mobile, compute, and infrastructure at Qualcomm Technologies, the Snapdragon 888 5G platform will feature 3rd generation Qualcomm Snapdragon X60 5G Modem-RF System, offering mmWave and sub-6 across all major bands worldwide, and, support for 5G carrier aggregation, global multi-SIM, stand alone, non-stand alone, and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing.
The new Snapdragon 888 5G SoC also focuses on AI, with the 6th generation Qualcomm AI Engine, and Hexagon processor, it will bring 26 TOPS of performance. With the 2nd generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub, Snapdragon 888 will bring lower-power always-on AI processing.
The Snapdragon 888 5G SoC also promises impressive improvements for the camera system with the new Spectra ISP, offering gigapixel speeds, capturing photos and videos at 2.7 gigapixels per second - roughly 120 photos at 12MP resolution - which is a 35 percent improvements compared to the previous generation.
Most significant upgrade to Qualcomm Adreno GPU performance
Another big part of the presentation was about gaming, and the Snapdragon 888 5G SoC promises "the most significant upgrade in Qualcomm Adreno GPU performance".
While precise technical details will be announced tomorrow, it is obvious that Qualcomm is heavily focused on gaming, and Snapdragon 888 SoC will bring 3rd generation of Snapdragon Elite Gaming, so 144 FPS gaming, Updateable GPU Drivers, Desktop Forward Rendering, and other features will be included with the Snapdragon 888 SoC.
All the big smartphone makers are already on board
Most of the major smartphone makers are already committed to the Snapdragon 888 5G SoC and we can expect the first devices in 2021.
Xiaomi has already confirmed its Mi 11 will be one of the first devices with Snapdragon 888 SoC.
The list includes ASUS, Black Shark, Lenovo, LG, MEIZU, Motorola, Nubia, realme, OnePlus, OPPO, Sharp, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE, and it will be interesting to see the performance improvements Snapdragon 888 will bring to the smartphone market.
