Qualcomm’s Snapdragon line of SoC’s is one of the most popular around the world when it comes to smartphones. In a recent patent filing, the name of the newest Snapdragon chip was confirmed: the “Snapdragon 845” chipset.
The Chip
These are very preliminary leaks, and we are not even certain of what the chip might actually be like. However, if we follow the generation based trend, we can expect an increase in power efficiency by 10-15 percent and processing capacity by 8-12 percent. The Snapdragon 845 will feature four Cortex A75 and four Cortex A53 cores, in a traditional big.LITTLE arrangement.
The Samsung Galaxy S9 will reportedly be the first phone to feature this chipset. This has been the tradition for a couple of years now. The chip will be fabricated using Samsung’s FinFET process as well, meaning that Samsung obviously has first dibs on this processor. The demand for the Snapdragon 835 has been causing supply related issues for Samsung, though. It is being said that the production has been unable to meet the supply demands so far.
Legal Hurdles
This comes in the backdrop of a large number of legal issues that are causing pain to Qualcomm right now. Intel, in a statement, has supported Apple, going on to say that Qualcomm’s patent spat with Apple is really about quashing competition from Intel. Intel’s statement goes on to accuse Qualcomm of maintaining a monopoly on cell phone modems through what it calls the anti-competitive practice where it does not allow OEMs to procure and use chips without paying royalties to Qualcomm, which are predatory in nature as well. They charge this royalty regardless of whether a Qualcomm chip is used or not.
Stay tuned, as we will keep posting more technical details regarding the chip as and when they arrive.
