Qualcomm’s midrange processors for next year appear to have been leaked over Weibo. The Snapdragon 670, 640, and 460 look like they are meant to replace the Snapdragon 660 and 450 from this year.
The Snapdragon 670 is built on the 10 nanometre process, as compared to the 14 nanometre process used in the previous generation. We expect Qualcomm to officially put the increase in power efficiency at about 30% – since that’s where the improvements tend to fall with a die shrink. In any case, the leak claims that it will have four Kryo 360 cores running at 2 GHz and four Kryo 385, clocked at 1.6 GHz.
Graphics will be handled by the Adreno 620 and the image processing taken care by the dual 14-bit Spectra 260 ISP which supports camera sensors up to a single 26-megapixel or twin 13-megapixel setup. The modem in the SoC will be the X16 LTE Cat.16 with a maximum download speed of 1 Gbps and upload speed of 150 Mbps.
Also built on the 10nm process is the Snapdragon 640, sporting two Kryo 360 cores at 2.15 GHz and six more running at 1.55 GHz. Adreno 610 will run the 3D rendering, but the chip will share the same ISP as the Snapdragon 670. The Snapdragon 640’s modem is the X12 LTE chip with a download/upload speeds of 600/150 Mbps.
Finally, the Snapdragon 460 looks to be a stripped-down version of the 640, with four Kryo 360 cores at 1.8 GHz and the other four running at 1.4GHz. The chip supports up to a 21-megapixel image sensor, thanks to the Spectra 240 ISP. It also shares the same modem as the 640. Unlike the other two, this SoC will be built using the older 14 nanometre process.
Qualcomm hasn’t officially announced any of these mobile platforms, but we should be hearing more about them at CES in January. From there, it should be another few months before OEMs begin deploying the chips in their own products.
