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Posts tagged as “SoC”

Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon 6s Gen 3: Modest Bump for the Mid-Range

June 10, 2024

Qualcomm has quietly introduced the latest addition to its mid-range mobile processor lineup, the Snapdragon 6s Gen 3. While positioned as a new generation chip, it appears to be more of an iterative upgrade than a ground-up redesign.

The focus of the 6s Gen 3 seems to be on providing performance boost over its predecessors, the Snapdragon 695. This is achieved through a modestly overclocked CPU. The new chip utilizes two Kryo CPU clusters: a pair of Cortex-A78 cores reaching up to 2.3 GHz and a cluster of six Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2.0 GHz.

Beyond the CPU bump, details are a bit sparse. Qualcomm mentions an Adreno GPU but hasn’t confirmed any specific improvements. The 6s Gen 3 utilizes a 6nm manufacturing process, ensuring decent power efficiency alongside its performance gains.

The chip supports global 5G connectivity with Sub-6 and mmWave support, making it a great option for upcoming mid-range smartphones. It also boasts the Qualcomm® Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine for enhanced AI capabilities and a FastConnect 6200 modem for improved connectivity.

However, a potential weak spot lies in the camera capabilities. The Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 reportedly only supports up to 1080p@60fps video capture, which might be underwhelming considering most flagship phones have moved on to higher resolutions.

Overall, the Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 seems like a competent mid-range processor offering a slight performance improvement over previous options. While it delivers the expected features like 5G and AI capabilities, the decent camera support might be a point of consideration for smartphone manufacturers. While there’s no official word yet on which smartphones will sport this chip, we’ll keep you posted as soon as we have more information.

Apple officially announce the M1, their first ARM-based Processor

November 12, 2020

In an event held last Tuesday, November 10th, Apple has officially announce the M1 chip, an ARM-based SoC that will power their laptops, desktops and other future products.

The M1 chip is a 5nm processor, similar to the A14 Bionic CPU that Apple uses in the latest iPhones and the A14 chips for Ipad Air. Apple also use an earlier version of the M1 chip, that A12Z Bionic SoC that’s inside the Developer Transition Kit (DTK) that was offered to developers during this year’s WWDC.

Here’s what Apple said about the M1 Chip;

It features the world’s fastest CPU core in low-power silicon, the world’s best CPU performance per watt, the world’s fastest integrated graphics in a personal computer, and breakthrough machine learning performance with the Apple Neural Engine. As a result, M1 delivers up to 3.5x faster CPU performance, up to 6x faster GPU performance, and up to 15x faster machine learning, all while enabling battery life up to 2x longer than previous-generation Macs. With its profound increase in performance and efficiency, M1 delivers the biggest leap ever for the Mac.

The M1 chip also include these technology that are previously available to iOS users;

  • Apple’s latest image signal processor (ISP) for higher quality video with better noise reduction, greater dynamic range, and improved auto white balance.
  • The latest Secure Enclave for best-in-class security.
  • A high-performance storage controller with AES encryption hardware for faster and more secure SSD performance.
  • Low-power, highly efficient media encode and decode engines for great performance and extended battery life.
  • An Apple-designed Thunderbolt controller with support for USB 4, transfer speeds up to 40Gbps, and compatibility with more peripherals than ever.

The new M1 chip will power the new Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and Mac Mini, and this is the first step to their two years transition to shift most if not all of their products to the new Apple Silicon Soc.