This article is from WeChat official account: intellectual things (ID: zhidxcom) , author: Yunpeng, edit: desert shadow, formerly titled” looked Xiaolong 888, I call 666! Qualcomm 5nm core king is here, Xiaomi’s first release”, the title picture comes from Visual China
In the early morning of December 2, Qualcomm’s first 5nm 5G SoC finally came, and Snapdragon 888 was officially released!
Its AI computing power has reached 26 TOPS, aspiring mobile chips; GPU performance has increased by 35%, ISP can process 2.7 billion pixels per second, and support 120 frames per second and 12 million pixels per frame for video shooting.
Moreover, Snapdragon 888 integrates X60 5G baseband, which is Qualcomm’s first 5nm SoC with integrated baseband design. Once the plug-in baseband was frequently complained by friends, today, friends are disappointed.
Following the successive releases of the three 5nm SoCs of Huawei Kirin 9000, Apple A14, and Samsung Exynos 1080, the performance of Qualcomm’s 5nm “top brand” has become the focus of attention in the industry.
Samsung Exynos 1080 is said to be specially built for the Chinese market, and Qualcomm’s latest SoC is named after “888” with “Chinese characteristics”, It seems that overseas mobile chip giants are quite “important” to the Chinese market.
But who is the strongest 5nm chip? Qualcomm did not give a specific answer to this question today.
This Qualcomm Technology Summit adopted the form of online recording and broadcasting for the first time. In the opening hour, everyone did not see the protagonist “Snapdragon 888” of the conference.
One hour later, the protagonist appeared on the scene, but Qualcomm only gave a summary introduction to its main features, and did not expand it in detail, nor did it compare with friends.
And the press conference is not over yet. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has already “snatched away” on Weibo and announced that Xiaomi will launch the Snapdragon 888 world premiere, which shows that mobile phone manufacturers have “can’t wait” to use this Android camp exclusive 5nm 5G SoC.
What other black technologies are there in Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 888, and what valuable information was released at the press conference? Wisdom things stay up late to take you through one article.
1. Anmeng: It’s a rare experience in 5G for ten years, and Qualcomm is a camera company
Qualcomm President An Meng said at the opening that 5G is a once-in-a-year technological change, and 5G has become the main factor considered by half of consumers when switching phones.
Qualcomm predicts that global 5G smartphone shipments will reach 450 to 550 million units in 2021, and there are currently more than 700 5G terminals equipped with Snapdragon. Anmeng said that Qualcomm’s R&D investment in mobile technology has exceeded $66 billion.
Anmeng specifically mentioned that Qualcomm attaches great importance to the development of mobile image processing technology and has accumulated profound experience in the field of mobile phone SoC ISP. He said, “In fact, we are a camera company.”
2. AI performance has skyrocketed by 73%, and X60 baseband show global coverage ability
What’s more interesting is that the Snapdragon 888 conference did not mention the CPU architecture and performance improvement.
According to industry information, Snapdragon 888 is likely to use the Cortex-A78, Cortex-X1 CPU core and Mali-G78 GPU core that Arm just released in May of this year.
According to the published GeekBench running scores, the Snapdragon 888 CPU scores about 1120 points for single-core and 3400 points for multi-core CPUs. However, the test products are all engineering machines. The running points are for reference only and are generally mass-produced. The model will be higher.
It has a total of 8 cores and adopts a “1+2+4” design. They are an X1 performance super core with a main frequency of 2.84GHz, three A78 cores with a main frequency of 2.42GHz, and four main cores. A55 small core with 1.8GHz frequency.
Kirin 9000 uses A77 core CPU core frequency has reached 3.13GHz, but the CPU single core score is still lower than Snapdragon 888, it can be seen that the performance improvement brought by the new A78 architecture is still very obvious.
According to public information, the GPU of Snapdragon 888 scored about 4450 points in the OpenCL test for GPU performance in Geekbench 5, which is better than the previous generation of Snapdragon 865 GPU.The rise is about 35%, which can be said to be “toothpaste squeeze.”
At present, AI performance has become one of the focuses of competition for various mobile phone SoCs. This time Snapdragon 888 uses the sixth-generation AI engine, including the new Hexagon processor, and the AI computing power is said to reach 26TOPS. Has released the highest AI computing power among mobile phones.
In terms of communication capabilities, Snapdragon 888 integrates Qualcomm’s latest 5nm X60 5G baseband and supports millimeter wave 5G. Qualcomm particularly emphasized that this is a product for the global market.
It can support all major global millimeter wave and Sub-6GHz frequency bands, as well as 5G carrier aggregation, global multi-SIM function, SA/NSA networking and dynamic spectrum sharing.(DSS).
Nowadays, the camera performance of a mobile phone is determined by the ISP unit, AI module computing power, lens module, image processing algorithm and other factors in the SoC. The ISP unit is undoubtedly the image data processing. The key link.
The ISP of the Snapdragon 888 can process 2.7 billion pixels per second, which is a 35% improvement in performance compared to the Snapdragon 865. It is said that it can shoot 120 frames per second and 12 million pixels per frame.
Game performance is also an important aspect of current mobile SoC. Anmeng said that there are currently nearly 1 billion people playing games on smartphones. In 2019, mobile games have accounted for more than half of the revenue of the entire game market.
On last year’s Snapdragon 865, Qualcomm took the lead in implementing the mobile GPU driver upgrade function. Mobile phones equipped with this platform can obtain graphics processing performance improvements through GPU-driven OTA upgrades, and even gain some new rendering features.
The Snapdragon 888 is equipped with the third-generation Elite Gaming game engine, and thanks to the 35% GPU performance improvement, the gaming experience will be better.
3. Lei Jun can’t wait to “grab the starter”, 5nm is short of MediaTek
The most interesting scene of this Qualcomm Technology Conference is that just halfway through the press conference, Lei Jun has announced on Weibo that Xiaomi will make the world premiere of Snapdragon 888 before the debut of Snapdragon 888.
For a long time, Xiaomi has been a “hardcore” user of Qualcomm. Since the first generation of Xiaomi mobile phones, it has been in the Qualcomm camp. 10 years have passed. The “Xiaomi next-generation flagship mobile phone” that Lei Jun called will compete with Snapdragon. What kind of sparks 888 produces is worth looking forward to.
In addition to Xiaomi’s first launch of Snapdragon 888, Android manufacturers such as OPPO, vivo, realme, Meizu, Black Shark, ZTE, Nubia, Lenovo, Asus, LG, Motorola, and Sharp will launch Snapdragon 888. Flagship Android phone.
Although MediaTek temporarily absent from the 5nm mobile phone SoC battle, it also released news in early November, saying that its first 6nm SoC will be released soon, and it also uses Arm’s latest A78 core with a maximum frequency of 3.0GHz. The performance is said to be comparable to that of Qualcomm’s previous flagship Snapdragon 865.
In addition, Samsung Exynos 1080 is only a mid-to-high-end product of its 5nm series and is exclusively for the Chinese market. It is not a flagship SoC. According to supply chain sources, next year’s Exynos 2100 will be Samsung’s 5nm highlight.
Some supply chain sources said that the price of the Snapdragon 888 chipset released this time may be around US$220. It should be said that it is a relatively “luxury” configuration. In contrast, the cost of the Apple A14 chip is about US$40. , Plus the price of the X55 baseband to form the chipset is only about $130.
However, after a wave of “price increases” by various Android manufacturers in 2020, flagship phones have exceeded the 4000 yuan or even 5000 yuan mark. Therefore, the first batch of flagship mobile phones that released Snapdragon 888 in China should not be too expensive. Big changes, after all, the flagship of around 4,000 yuan is the home of Android.
Four. Conclusion: Qualcomm has finally reached 5nm, the highlight is still to come
Thanks to Samsung’s 5nm process, the use of Arm’s new architecture, and Qualcomm’s own design tuning, the new generation of Snapdragon 888 has significant performance improvements in important modules such as CPU, GPU, AI, and ISP. This year’s 5nm In the mobile phone SoC battle, it can be said that Qualcomm has temporarily gained a firm foothold.
The first half of next year will be the period when Snapdragon 888 will be launched on a large scale. At that time, Samsung may also release its own 5nm flagship Exynos 2100, and MediaTek will also have new actions. The battle for 5nm chips may only get better in 2021.
Now, Apple has entered the desktop with the advantage of ultra-high performance of mobile chips, and it is likely to rewrite the PC processor market in the next few years. Qualcomm has already released SoCs for desktops but has been performing flat.
Will Qualcomm follow in Apple’s footsteps and make more bold attempts? How will Huawei, MediaTek, and Samsung make their own choices? The mobile chip market in 2021 may be full of surprises and uncertainties.
This article is from WeChat official account: intellectual things (ID: zhidxcom) , author: Yunpeng, editor: desert shadow