The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 gen 2 SoC for flagship smartphones
The Snapdragon Tech Summit is a multi-day event that showcases the latest mobile technology Qualcomm has to offer. This is the second year that Qualcomm has held simultaneous events in China and Hawaii, as well as streaming the keynote addresses. Day 1 of the Snapdragon Tech Summit kicked off with the introduction of the latest smartphone system-on-chip (SoC) for smartphones – the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. As expected, it delivers improvements in performance and efficiency for camera, connectivity, gaming, sound, and security. But the biggest punch comes from the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in just about every area. The company went so far as to call it “purpose built for AI.”
Qualcomm uses all of the Snapdragon SoC’s processing elements for AI processing and calls the combination of these processing elements the “AI engine.” Among the enhancements incorporated into the AI engine was a dedicated power plane and a doubling of the tensor processing cores within the Hexagon processor. The result is a 4.35x improvement in performance and an equally impressive 60% improvement in performance per watt efficiency. Qualcomm also added support for transformer neural network models which are critical for applications like natural language processing (NLP) for speech-to-text and text-to-speech translation. The Hexagon can splice the neural NLP model into smaller elements to run on micro tiles allowing for more efficient use of the processing cores. Additionally, Qualcomm added support for Int4 data structures. In many cases, this lower precision data structure can be used by neural network models like computational photography image enhancement without a noticeable loss of accuracy while improving speed and power efficiency. The end result is faster and more efficient processing of neural network models.
With the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Qualcomm is also introducing the Hexagon Direct Link – a physical link between the Hexagon processor and the other AI processing cores for fast, real-time processing. According to the company, this will enable the first cognitive processing by the image signal processor (ISP) in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
Qualcomm also added a second AI processor to the sensor hub for real-time sensor processing, increasing the sensor processing by 2x. The additional sensor processing combined with applications allows for new capabilities, such as processing by the camera even when the phone is in sleep mode. As a result, the phone could still be used to detect activity and/or be used for other applications, such as scanning QR codes while in sleep mode. When the phone is active, the real-time sensing can actively monitor the user or users to unlock the phone, enable privacy mode when unauthorized users are viewing the screen, and/or disable notifications while an unauthorized user views the screen.
The Snapdragon 8 gen 2 will also feature another first, dedicated AI processing in the modem, an area that is long overdue to be enhanced by AI. This feature improves throughput, coverage, and range, especially when operating at the edge of a cellular network. The modem also includes 4x carrier aggregation for up to 10Gbps and simultaneous dual-SIM support while remaining backwards compatible with 4G.
Another major improvement in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is in the GPU. Qualcomm enhanced the Adreno GPU to include hardware ray tracing with minimal impact on power consumption. The chip can run ray tracing while only drawing 5W, even without the use of upscaling technology like that used in PCs. The updated Adreno GPU also supports Vulkan 1.3, HDR Vivid, Adaptive HDR, OLED aging compensation, and Unreal Engine 5 MetaHumans, with a 25% increase in performance and power efficiency.
Other enhancements to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 include Wi-Fi 7 support using 320MHz high-band channels in the 6GHz frequency band for up to 5.8Gbps and latency as low as 2ns, dual Bluetooth channels, and the use of a new 3.2GHz Arm Cortex X3 high-performance core for a 35% increase in performance and 40% increase in performance efficiency. And, what I think is one of the coolest features, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 supports dynamic spatial audio enabled by Snapdragon Sound technology.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will be manufactured on TSMC 4nm technology and will be incorporated into products introduced from Oppo, Samsung, and other smartphone vendors beginning in early 2024. As promised, it will provide enhancements, especially to multimedia applications like content creation and gaming .
Also announced in support of the Snapdragon product line is the Qualcomm AI Stack, the Qualcomm AI Studio, and the Qualcomm Innovation Developer Kit. The Qualcomm AI Stack allows for the deployment of AI models across multiple platforms. The Qualcomm AI Studio offers developers a single platform to develop and optimize neural network models for Snapdragon platforms. And the Qualcomm Innovation Developer Kit offers developers a full development Snapdragon hardware and software development platform with custom support.
The Qualcomm AI Engine and supporting tools
Day two of the Snapdragon summit will be focused on XR, PCs, and other technologies. So look for the follow-on article for more information.
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