Huawei was not the only company to make a processor announcement at Mobile World Congress with their MT6732 64-bit LTE SoC. Qualcomm today announced two additions to its Snapdragon 600 line: The quad-core Snapdragon 610 and the octa-core Snapdragon 615. Both are 64-bit processors with integrated LTE modems.
Both the Snapdragon 610 and Snapdragon 615 will use ARM Cortex-A53 cores rather than its own Krait cores. They also pack an Adreno 405 GPU which can handle displays up to WQHD (2560×1440) along with support for DirectX 11.2 and Open GL ES3.0. Also on board are an H.265 hardware decoder and Qualcomm VIVE 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1 solutions.
On the cellular connectivity side, the Snapdragon 610 and 615 come with Qualcomm’s RF360 front end solution. It gives both processors support for not only LTE “across all major bands and modes worldwide” but also HSPA+ (up to 42Mbps), CDMA, and TD-SCDMA.
“Qualcomm Technologies is redefining the user experience for high-end mobile devices by amassing the unparalleled trilogy of an industry-leading LTE modem, 64-bit multicore processing, and superior multimedia,” said Murthy Renduchintala, executive vice president, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and co-president, QCT. “64-bit processing capabilities are now an industry requirement for this tier, and we are meeting our customers’ needs with both octa- and quad-core configurations, as well as bringing our superior Adreno 405 graphics and powerful suite of connectivity technologies to the Snapdragon 600 family of chipsets.”
Both the Qualcomm Snapdragon 610 and Snapdragon 615 are expected to begin sampling in Q3 2014. The first devices to sport these processors should follow by the end of the year.
Qualcomm now has 64-bit processors in both its Snapdragon 400 and 600 lines. Can an announcement for a 64-bit Snapdragon 800 SoC be far behind?
And speaking about the 800 series, Qualcomm also quietly unveiled the Snapdragon 801. While the name is new, the processor itself is not. The company has simply chosen to rebrand the newer and MSM8974AB and MSM8974AC versions of the Snapdragon 800. The older MSM8974 will remain branded as a Snapdragon 800.
Source : Qualcomm