Qualcomm Rounds Out Mid-Range SoC Lineup With Snapdragon 617 And Snapdragon 430
After making waves with its Snapdragon 820 System-on-Chip (SoC), Qualcomm is taking the wraps off its mid-range Snapdragon SoC updates. The new Snapdragon 430 and 617 are set to bring more power and new features to 4G LTE devices.
The SoCs make use of ARM Cortex A53 octa-core CPUs and Qualcomm Hexagon DSP. The two new SoCs also feature Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0, which is expected to let users charge their phones and other mobile devices significantly faster than today’s devices. Where today’s phone might take 90 minutes to charge from empty to 80 percent, a phone with the Snapdragon 430 or 617 SoC (or 618, 620 or 820, for that matter) is expected to pare that down to a mere 35 minutes.
The Snapdragon 430 SoC supports dual cameras for smartphones and other mobile devices and it supports sensors for those cameras up to 21MP. For graphics, it has Open GL ES3.1 and OpenCL 2.0 support, courtesy of the new Qualcomm Adreno 505 GPU. As for connectivity, the SoC features X6 LTE, with Cat 4 download speeds at 150Mbps and Cat 5 uploads at 75Mbps, which Qualcomm says is a first for this category.
Both of the new SoCs have carrier aggregation, (2x10 for the 430, 2x20 for the 617). The Snapdragon 617 features X8 LTE connectivity and supports Cat 7 download speeds of 300Mbps. Upload speeds of 100Mbps are possible.
You can expect to see devices with the Snapdragon 617 inside before the end of the year, but you’ll be waiting until later next year for the 430. Qualcomm said in a statement that devices with the Snapdragon 430 will arrive in Q2 2016.
The SoCs make use of ARM Cortex A53 octa-core CPUs and Qualcomm Hexagon DSP. The two new SoCs also feature Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0, which is expected to let users charge their phones and other mobile devices significantly faster than today’s devices. Where today’s phone might take 90 minutes to charge from empty to 80 percent, a phone with the Snapdragon 430 or 617 SoC (or 618, 620 or 820, for that matter) is expected to pare that down to a mere 35 minutes.
The Snapdragon 430 SoC supports dual cameras for smartphones and other mobile devices and it supports sensors for those cameras up to 21MP. For graphics, it has Open GL ES3.1 and OpenCL 2.0 support, courtesy of the new Qualcomm Adreno 505 GPU. As for connectivity, the SoC features X6 LTE, with Cat 4 download speeds at 150Mbps and Cat 5 uploads at 75Mbps, which Qualcomm says is a first for this category.
Both of the new SoCs have carrier aggregation, (2x10 for the 430, 2x20 for the 617). The Snapdragon 617 features X8 LTE connectivity and supports Cat 7 download speeds of 300Mbps. Upload speeds of 100Mbps are possible.
You can expect to see devices with the Snapdragon 617 inside before the end of the year, but you’ll be waiting until later next year for the 430. Qualcomm said in a statement that devices with the Snapdragon 430 will arrive in Q2 2016.
