Premium Section SoC Will get a Cortex-X CPU Core

After a 2021/2022 product cycle that was a bit extra interesting than Qualcomm maybe would have favored, 2023 has been a much more easy 12 months for the prolific SoC and mobile modem vendor. After releasing the primary of their Gen 2 household of components earlier this 12 months with the flagship-class Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the corporate is getting ready to iterate via the following step of its product stack with the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2. Geared toward what’s develop into Qualcomm’s conventional $400 to $600 “premium” market section, which focuses on flagship-level options with extra modest efficiency and prices, for the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2, Qualcomm is aiming to ship a large efficiency enhance to the platform.

Positioned because the successor to final 12 months’s Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, this 12 months’s iteration of the Snapdragon 7 is, broadly talking, extra centered on bettering efficiency than including options. Whereas final 12 months’s Gen 1 half added mmWave help and new CPU and GPU architectures – significantly Armv9 structure CPU cores – this 12 months there’s solely a handful of recent options. Instead of that, nevertheless is what Qualcomm is touting as considered one of their greatest efficiency boosts ever for the Snapdragon 7 household. That is being enabled largely by a much-welcomed pivot from Samsung’s beleaguered 4nm course of to TSMC’s  4nm course of, mirroring the swap Qualcomm made final 12 months for the well-received mid-cycle Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 half.

Additionally new this 12 months, Qualcomm is dropping hints that this is not going to be the one Snapdragon 7 Gen 2 half we see this 12 months, vis-a-vie the choice to launch their first Gen 2 half because the 7+ moderately than the 7. In a nutshell, launching as a Snapdragon 7+ half leaves Qualcomm room to launch a vanilla Snapdragon 7 half afterward. To make sure, Qualcomm isn’t explicitly asserting any such half now, however there’s little motive to launch a 7+ first except that they had plans for one thing under it; in any other case they might have launched it as 7 half ala the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, which was all the time a one-chip stack.

When it comes to CPU group, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 retains the identical 1+3+4 CPU core configuration that we’ve seen for the previous few generations of the Snapdragon 7 household. The large information right here is that the top-performing Prime core is getting a major efficiency enchancment, as Qualcomm makes the swap from utilizing a barely larger clocked mid-core to utilizing a extra performant CPU structure altogether.

So, for the primary time ever for a Snapdragon 7 half, Qualcomm is tapping considered one of Arm’s Cortex-X cores for the Prime core. The Cortex-X2 used right here is technically Arm’s previous-generation design, so it gained’t be stepping on the toes of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and its Cortex-X3 core. However in comparison with the A710 core used for the 7 Gen 1’s Prime core (and seven+ Gen 2’s mid-cores), the Cortex-X2 represents a major enchancment in each IPC and clockspeeds. In consequence, the height clockspeed for the Prime core has gone from 2.4GHz to 2.91GHz, which compounds additional with the IPC features of the extra advanced core.

All instructed, Qualcomm is touting an “as much as” 50% CPU efficiency enchancment for 7+ Gen 2 over the 7 Gen 1; nearly all of that is coming from the brand new Prime core.

The trade-off is that such a big efficiency enhance is actually solely accessible for single-threaded workloads, since there’s solely the one Cortex-X2 core. The three mid (efficiency) cores are as soon as once more Cortex-A710 primarily based, and are clocked all of two% larger than earlier than. As such, the 7+ Gen 1 isn’t going to see big features on closely multithreaded workloads. The improved energy effectivity of TSMC’s 4nm course of ought to pay some dividends there, however a few of these features have been invested into making that power-hungry Cortex-X2 viable from a battery life perspective.

In the meantime, the 7+ Gen 2 additionally incorporates a quicker Adreno GPU. As has been the case with Qualcomm’s built-in GPUs for a few generations now, the corporate isn’t assigning a product quantity to it – not to mention disclosing vital architectural particulars – so there’s a restricted quantity of element we will share. Primarily based on the characteristic abstract, it doesn’t appear to be that is utilizing the newer GPU structure from the 8 Gen 2; so it might appear Qualcomm has included a much bigger model of their current GPU and nearly actually given it a wholesome clockspeed enhance.

No matter is the case, the GPU efficiency expectations for the brand new SoC are vital: Qualcomm is boasting a large 2x efficiency enchancment over the 7 Gen 1 – a platform that solely delivered 20% greater than its personal predecessor. Although these aren’t flagship-class SoCs, Qualcomm nonetheless likes to place the Snapdragon 7 sequence as being an excellent match for gaming smartphones, particularly in China, so it’s not too stunning to see Qualcomm investing a lot into GPU efficiency.

All instructed, Qualcomm is touting a 13% enchancment in energy effectivity over the 7 Gen 1, a minimum of on an “prolonged day by day use” foundation. The swap to TSMC’s 4nm course of ought to pay vital dividends, as evidenced by final 12 months’s 8+ Gen 1 half, however on the identical time it’s clear that Qualcomm has been investing an excellent portion of these features into bettering total efficiency.

Feeding the dragon is a 32-bit (twin 16-bit) LPDDR5 reminiscence controller. In contrast to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the 7+ Gen 2 is just not getting help for quicker LPDDR5X reminiscence, which suggests established order reigns for the Snapdragon 7 household. On this case, this implies help for reminiscence speeds as much as LPDDR5-6400, which works out to 25.6GB/second of reminiscence bandwidth. Contrasted with the numerous CPU and GPU efficiency will increase, there’s going to be much more strain positioned on Qualcomm’s cache and reminiscence subsystem to maintain the varied processing blocks fed.

Talking of which, it’s not simply the CPU and GPU blocks which have seen main efficiency will increase. Qualcomm’s Hexagon DSP/AI engine block has additionally obtained a major efficiency tune-up, rivaling the 2x improve to the GPU. Qualcomm was mild on the technical particulars right here, nevertheless in our briefing there was no point out made from options similar to INT4 or micro-tiling – two main options of the next-gen Hexagon block on the 8 Gen 2 – so it appears seemingly that this can be a closely beefed up model of the Hexagon block used on the earlier 7 Gen 1.

One piece of Snapdragon 8 expertise that’s making its manner right down to the Snapdragon 7, nevertheless, is its triple 18-bit Spectra ISP. Changing the 14-bit unit featured in earlier generations of the platform, the 18-bit unit on the 7+ Gen 2 will convey help for triple publicity computational HDR video seize, in addition to improved low mild pictures, which Qualcomm calls their Mega Low Gentle characteristic. The tip result’s that the 7+ Gen 2 can seize at larger resolutions when utilizing zero shutter lag performance, and mixed with the up to date GPU, can now report 4K video at as much as 60fps, doubling the 7 Gen 1’s 4K30 restrict.

Lastly, rounding out the bundle is a reprise of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X62 built-in modem. Like final 12 months’s SoC, this can be a mmWave + Sub-6 Launch 16 design that may obtain a theoretical most obtain price of 4.4Gbps. This 12 months’s design does include a twist, nevertheless: twin SIM twin lively (DSDA) help, which is one other first for the Snapdragon 7 platform. Each lively radios on 7+ Gen 2 help 5G and 4G communications, permitting twin SIM customers to make use of basically no matter community they’d like on both radio. That is one other premium characteristic, that till now, had been restricted to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 platform.

As for non-cellular connectivity, the 7+ Gen 2 makes use of a FastConnect 6900 radio system. This can be a comparatively modest replace over the sooner 6700 radio, bumping up Bluetooth help to model 5.3 of the protocol, and growing the height bandwidth of the 2×2 stream Wi-Fi 6E radio to three.6Gbps because of dual-band simultaneous (DBS) help.

Wrapping issues up, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 might be coming to market in a short time. In response to Qualcomm, handsets utilizing the SoC might be out there later this month, with Redmi and Realme among the many OEMs slated to launch telephones primarily based across the new chip.