On Tuesday, Qualcomm announced its first dual-CPU Snapdragon chipsets: The Mobile Station Modem MSM8260 and MSM8660. The new cores run at up to 1.2 GHz.
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Qualcomm is targeting high-end smartphones with the third generation of its Snapdragon platform. The second generation, which runs at one gigahertz, powers the Droid Incredible, HTC EVO 4G, and Google Nexus One, among other devices. The announcement Tuesday sets the stage for OEMs to begin designing smartphones, tablets and netbooks on even faster chipsets.
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As companies continue to create high-end platforms that can do more graphically rich environments and sophisticated applications, consumers are looking for things to flow quickly, seamlessly and effortlessly, said Michael Gartenberg, a partner at Altimeter Group. No doubt we are going to see a lot of folks begin to take advantage of Snapdragon and other platforms in the very near future.
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The Tech Behind the Speed
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Technology-wise, the MSM8260 for HSPA+ and MSM8660 for multimode HSPA+/CDMA2000 1xEVDO Rev. B feature two CPU cores running at up to 1.2 GHz. That translates to high levels of web-application and multimedia performance for functions like video, 3-D games, and other 3-D apps.
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In fact, the chips include a GPU with both 3-D and 2-D acceleration engines for Open GLES 2.0 and Open VG 1.1 acceleration. There is support for 1080p video encoding and decoding, a dedicated low-power audio engine, integrated low-power GPS and support for 24-bit WXGA 1280×800 resolution displays — all the makings of next-generation devices.
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We are going to see the chips really accelerate this year. We are going to be well beyond two gigahertz in mobile devices by the end of the year, Gartenberg said. That’s going to let platform providers and application developers do all sorts of things. When it comes to the mobile space, fast is nowhere near fast enough. Because of the immediacy…