Qualcomm Launches Powerful Snapdragon 780G 5nm Chip For Mid-Range Phones

Whereas the Snapdragon 765G was built on Samsung’s 7nm process node, the Snapdragon 780G uses Samsung’s bleeding-edge 5nm process node. This should hopefully lead to further power efficiency gains for the incoming wave of mid-range smartphones. The Snapdragon 765G used two Cortex-A76 high-performance cores in conjunction with six Cortex-A55 efficiency cores. On the other hand, its successor uses four Cortex-A78 performance cores (with a prime core clocked at 2.4GHz) paired with four 1.9GHz Cortex-A55 efficiency cores. The new SoC also supports the Snapdragon Elite Gaming platform.

A new Adreno 642 GPU joins the team with an alleged 50 percent overall performance uplift over last year’s Adreno 620 in the gaming-oriented Snapdragon 768G (which itself offered a 15 percent performance lift over the Snapdragon 765G). Other onboard components include a Hexagon 770 Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which promises to deliver 12 TOPs compute performance in AI operations versus 5.4 TOPs for the Snapdragon 765G/768G. 

Cameras are a big deal with our smartphones, with many of us not going a single day without snapping at least a photo or two. With that in mind, the Snapdragon 780G features a Spectra 570 ISP that can support the following:

• Triple Camera, MFNR, ZSL, 30fps: Up to 25 MP
• Dual Camera, MFNR, ZSL, 30fps: Up to 64+20 MP
• Single Camera: Up to 192 MP

A Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 chip handles short-range Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. The Snapdragon 680G supports Bluetooth 5.2 LE on the former front, while the latter extends support to the latest Wi-Fi 6E standard. Finally, there’s a new Snapdragon X53 5G modem onboard, the successor to the Snapdragon X52. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the Snapdragon X53 supports mmWave 5G bands (which are limited in availability anyway in the United States) and instead exclusively supports sub-6GHz 5G connectivity. There is, of course, support for legacy 4G LTE connections as well.

“Since introducing the Snapdragon 7-series three years ago, more than 350 devices have launched based on 7-series mobile platforms. Today, we are continuing this momentum by introducing the Snapdragon 780G 5G Mobile Platform,” said Kedar Kondap, VP of Product Management for Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Snapdragon 780G was designed to bring in-demand, premium experiences to more users around the world.”

According to Qualcomm, the first smartphones with the Snapdragon 780G 5G Mobile Platform onboard will arrive during Q2 2021.