Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 670 series today in a blog post, detailing the key improvements and features of the device. The SoC fits in between the Snapdragon 660 and 710 and packs in features common to both the chips. It also features some AI capabilities.
AI Engine
The Snapdragon 670 comes loaded with an AI engine that will help device manufacturers provide products that feature things such as AI based photography, face recognition, and voice recognition. However, HDR capture won’t be supported on this device. The AI Engine supports frameworks such as the Qualcomm Neural Processing SDK and Hexagon Neural Network (NN). Additionally, it supports Caffe, Caffe2, TensorFlow, TensorFlowLite, and ONNX (Open Neural Network Exchange).
Kryo Cores
The 670 features two cores for data-intensive tasks and six cores for everyday demands. The Kryo 360 CPU provides a 15% performance uplift compared to the previous generation Snapdragon 6xx series SoCs. This should mean faster multitasking for end-users with no impact on battery life.
Adreno 615 GPU
The Snapdragon 670 features the Adreno 615 GPU, which is the same as the pricier Snapdragon 670. This should mean that most games will run smoothly with higher frame rates due to this GPU. Qualcomm promises a performance increase of 25% over the Snapdragon 660, while the 710 promised a 35% increase in the same comparison.
Quick Charge 4 and Power efficiency
Just like the Snapdragon 710, the 670 is manufactured on a newer 10LPP process node, so it should benefit from the same power efficiency gains as its higher-end sibling. The SoC will also support Quick Charge 4 if OEMs choose to purchase the licensing for it.
As far as OEMs go, the Snapdragon 670’s pin and software are compatible with the Snapdragon 710, allowing OEMs the flexibility to choose between them to match a budget. It will be a few months before we see commercial devices with this SoC, so we’ll need to wait for a bit longer before we get to run more tests on the 670 platform.
Source: Qualcomm
