Items tagged with (NASDAQ:QCOM)
Qualcomm will be expanding wireless connectivity around the home with its new Immersive Home Platforms for building mesh networks. Qualcomm reports that these platforms are “Designed to deploy gigabit-speed wireless performance to every room in the home in form factors as small as the palm of the hand.” This is possible by leveraging the power of WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E to make speed up and fortify home network. 2020 has proven the importance of a reliable home WiFi network with the rise in work and education from home. Qualcomm claims that they are “meeting the challenge to provide corner-to-corner Gigabit wireless performance, in an effort to ensure every meeting is productive,...
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It looks as though we might have a new competitor emerging in the Android smartphone market, and it’s coming from the unlikeliest of sources. To take on the likes of Samsung, LG, Motorola, OnePlus, and countless others, you need plenty of resources and a global supply chain to get smartphones into the hands of customers. But we’re still a little surprised to hear that it’s actually Qualcomm that is the alleged new entrant into the market. The first word of the development came from Taiwanese publication DigiTimes, which claims that Qualcomm will launch a new premium smartphones under its own brand name. Considering that the article is behind a paywall, it only indicated...
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Qualcomm is getting the ball rolling early when it comes to its next-generation flagship Android SoC. The company today sent out invites announcing that it will hold its annual Snapdragon Tech Summit from December 1st through December 2nd (the invites typically go out a month before the event, but this year’s invite is being sent out two months early). This event is usually held in sunny Maui, but this year due to COVID-19 it will be held virtually. "As always, Snapdragon is synonymous with premium tier mobile performance and this year will be no different," Qualcomm wrote in the email invite. "We all know that 2020 has been a challenging year so far, but we’re feeling lucky...
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While we are still in the early stages, more and more PC manufacturers have jumped aboard the Windows on Arm train. First we had Microsoft's initial offering, the Surface Pro X. Then Samsung joined the fray with the traditional-looking Galaxy Book S, with battery life that lasted for days. Now Lenovo has crashed the party with the Flex 5G, a machine with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx 5G system on a chip (SoC) stuffed inside a versatile, a do-it-all convertible 2-in-1 design. Reviewing an Arm-based Windows PC every few months gives us a glimpse into the evolution of the Arm ecosystem. At first, there weren't many production-ready apps—even Microsoft's Edge web browser was in its beta infancy...
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Qualcomm is expanding its Snapdragon family yet again, and it’s doing so with another 7-Series chip with integrated 5G connectivity. Called the Snapdragon 750G, this SoC will find its way into a slew of upcoming mid-range smartphones in the coming months. In the grand scheme of things, the Snapdragon 750G is poised to be the official replacement for the existing Snapdragon 730G found in the Google Pixel 4a and countless other mid-range smartphones. Whereas the Snapdragon 730G uses a Cortex-A76/Cortex-A55 based Kryo 470 CPU, the Snapdragon 750G switches things up with a Kryo 570 (Cortex-A77/Cortex-A55). Likewise, the Snapdragon 750G is rocking a new Adreno 619 GPU versus the Adreno 618 found...
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Last year, Qualcomm announced their Cloud AI 100 platform to provide low-power high-performance AI inference acceleration. Now, these devices are coming to fruition in a variety of form factors for the data center and the individual user. AI inferencing is an important step in developing AI and utilizing it effectively. Inferencing in general is used in many technologies. AI inferencing, as the name states, is a way for AI to “infer” things about what it is trained on. Basically, AI can condense what it knows, reduce the number of steps to figure something out, and infer from there. This optimizes the AI and how it runs, making it so you do not need as strong of hardware to complete...
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When it comes to mobile SoCs for Android smartphones, there's Qualcomm, and then there's everybody else. Sure, there have been some challenges from the like of HiSilicon, MediaTek and Samsung, but Qualcomm has for the most part held the performance/features edge with its broad Snapdragon portfolio. Samsung, however, is looking to change that with its next-generation Exynos SoCs, especially when it comes to its flagship offerings. The South Korean electronics giant is reportedly working on a high-end chip codenamed Olympus according to the Yonhap News Agency, which would offer a significant boost in performance compared to existing Exynos chips. More importantly, it is expected...
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When one wants to block out the sounds of the world, active noise cancelling is the feature to look for. Now, Qualcomm is one-upping active noise cancelling with adaptive active noise cancellation. Their first product to support this adaptive ANC will be the Qualcomm QCC514x Bluetooth SoC. According to Qualcomm, the new adaptive ANC (AANC for short?) aims “to deliver an improved user experience for earbuds with integrated ANC.” When Qualcomm polled customers, ANC was a highly requested feature among users. As such, Qualcomm stepped in to help deliver a consistent baseline for ANC so customers could have a solid experience. As far as user experience goes, the goal is to make it “as...
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The smartphone world is quickly moving towards 5G, what started as a trickle in 2019 and turned into a steady stream in 2020. And by 2021, there will be a flood of 5G-enabled smartphones entering the market, helped in part by Qualcomm. The company announced today that its entry-level Snapdragon 4-Series SoCs will adopt 5G technology starting in early 2021. Qualcomm has taken a top-down approach with 5G, first supporting the next-generation cellular standard last year with the Snapdragon 855/855+ used in conjunction with the discrete Snapdragon X50 5G modem. This year, the company has further expanded 5G availability, with the complete lineup listed below: Flagship Snapdragon 855/Snapdragon 855+...
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Qualcomm first announced its Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform way back in December 2018, which was designed to deliver PC-class performance to ultraportable Windows 10 laptops with the power-sipping credentials that Arm-based chips are known for. Since that time, we’ve seen a handful of devices that have embraced the Snapdragon 8cx including the Samsung Galaxy Book S and the Surface Pro X (which uses a slightly modified version of the SoC called the Microsoft SQ1). Now, Qualcomm is ready to deliver the next evolution in its PC-centric endeavors with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G Compute Platform. On the surface, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G doesn’t seem to offer...
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Qualcomm's Snapdragon 730 SoC has been around for quite a while, and currently powers the surprisingly versatile Google Pixel 4a smartphone that starts at a low $349 (you can read the HotHardware review here). Not one to rest on its laurels, Qualcomm today is launching a follow-up to the Snapdragon 730G that is still firmly in the mid-range category for performance and features: the Snapdragon 732G. The Snapdragon 732G features a couple of performance improvements over its predecessor including a Kryo 470 CPU Prime core that is clocked at 2.3GHz versus 2.2GHz. Although Qualcomm doesn't give specifics, the Adreno 618 GPU has also been beefed up to improve graphics performance. Other...
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Earlier this month, a U.S. Appeals Court ruled in favor of Qualcomm following an FTC antitrust lawsuit. Qualcomm was cleared after "no evidence" of anticompetitive behavior was found, and the company's $5 billion a year licensing business was left unscathed. Now, car and tech companies are up in arms, requesting that the FTC not back down yet. In 2017, the FTC brought up a lawsuit against Qualcomm alleging antitrust law violations and anti-competitive behavior. Initially, the ruling was against Qualcomm, whereby they would have to renegotiate patent licensing agreements with the companies to which they provided parts. The 9th circuit court with a panel of judges, however, reversed this decision...
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Qualcomm is tasting sweet redemption this week after a U.S. Appeals Court ruled in its favor regarding a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit alleging it had violated antitrust laws. At the center of the lawsuit was Qualcomm's licensing business, which is a huge source of revenue for the company (this revenue amounted to nearly $5 billion during 2019). Qualcomm has long brokered licensing deals with companies like Samsung, Huawei, and Apple. The latter company was involved in a years-long fight with Qualcomm over wireless chip licensing (with Apple arguing that it was paying too much money per smartphone sold), but the two parties eventually settled last year and announced a new multi-year...
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Google's Pixel 4a finally launched last week after a months-long delay, and is a solid entry in the mid-range smartphone market. The Pixel 4a offers a compelling mix of an excellent camera, good display, respectable battery life and a budget-friendly price tag of $349. However, Google has yet to reveal its Pixel 5 flagship and has only confirmed that it will be coming this fall along with the Pixel 4a (5G). But that hasn't stopped the Pixel 5 from showing up at AI Benchmark, and its appearance confirms previous reporting that we've featured on the smartphone. According to the AI Benchmark listing, the Pixel 5 is rocking a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G SoC and 8GB of RAM. For...
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Qualcomm is reportedly imploring the United States government to let the semiconductor outfit sell its Snapdragon processors to Huawei, which would then be placed into 5G-capable handsets. As things currently stand, US companies are banned from selling parts to Huawei, which is based in China, due to national security concerns. There have been some exceptions to the ban, and Qualcomm is hoping it can join the list. In a presentation it put together on the topic, Qualcomm says the ban will not stop Huawei from obtaining parts it needs to build and sell mobile devices, but it would result in billion of US dollars being lost to rivals like MediaTek and Samsung, The Wall Street Journal reports. Qualcomm's...
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And overwhelming number of Android smartphones rely on Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. While there are other SoC vendors out like Huawei and Samsung, Qualcomm alone captured roughly 40 percent of the overall smartphone market during 2019. With that wide penetration comes greater scrutiny when it comes to any security exploits that could affect Snapdragon chips. To that end, the researchers at Check Point have discovered over 400 vulnerable pieces of code within the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) chips found within Snapdragon SoCs used in hundreds of millions of Android devices. The 400 pieces of flawed code have been broken down into six separate security flaws, which are represented...
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All things considered, Qualcomm is coming off a successful quarter, even though its third quarter revenue remained flat year-over-year. No change can be considered a good thing, given that the Coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the global economy and made things challenging in the technology sector (and beyond). Oh, and Qualcomm entered into a licensing deal with Huawei. That latter bit of news is the likely reason by Qualcomm's stock is on a sharp rise in early morning trading today. Shares of Qualcomm jumped 13 percent in after hours last night, and at the time of this writing, the company's stock price is up more than 11 percent, to $103.58. The company's market cap is now around $115.77 billion....
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A pair of new rumors going around suggest Apple may delay the launch of its new 5G iPhone models and new iPads. Apple typically launches its new devices in September, but it's quite possible that the iPhone and iPad models will be delayed until October. The first indication of a delayed launch comes from Qualcomm's Q3 earnings report noting the company will see a "partial impact from the delay of a global 5G flagship phone launch" impacting its Q4 projections (covering July, August, and September). While Qualcomm certainly doesn't say the delayed launch is the 5G iPhone family, it's pretty well implied. The new iPhone models are the only devices expected to launch in that time frame that could...
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We all have better things to do than wait for our smartphones and other mobile devices to recharge. This is what makes fast charging technology so delightful, and in that vein, Qualcomm on Monday announced its Quick Charge 5 tech for Android devices, which is capable of taking a depleted device with a 4,500 mAh battery and juicing it to 50 percent in only five minutes. In the process, Qualcomm has earned itself some bragging rights here. For one, going from 0 to 50 percent battery power in just five minutes qualifies as the fastest commercial charging technology available for Android devices. This is also the first commercially viable fast charging platform to support more than 100W charging...
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Qualcomm has been on a crusade to iterate at lightning fast speeds with its smartphone SoCs, but the same can’t be said for its efforts with the rapidly growing wearables market – specifically with smartwatches. The company announced its lightly refreshed Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform way back in September 2018, which itself came more than two years after the introduction of the Snapdragon Wear 2100. Today, Qualcomm is taking another step forward with the new Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform, which is built on a smaller 12nm process node versus the relatively ancient 28nm on its predecessor. The chip company is promising significant gains not only in performance with new...
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2020 is the year of 5G wireless connectivity for smartphones, and Qualcomm is looking to blanket all sectors with its Snapdragon chipsets. At the high-end, we have the Snapdragon 865 with its separate Snapdragon X55 5G modem. In the "premium" mid-range sector, we have the Snapdragon 765/765G/768G with their integrated Snapdragon X52 modems. Now, Qualcomm is looking to go further down-market to bring 5G connectivity to the masses with the Snapdragon 690 SoC. This isn't just a case of Qualcomm slapping a 5G modem onboard and calling it a day; the company has made some significant changes compared to other 600-Series chips that makes it stand out. For starters, it still features a big.LITTLE...
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OnePlus Z information has been leaking at a rapid clip in recent weeks, and today's latest reveal brings a few of the missing pieces surrounding the launch of the mid-range smartphone. India has emerged as a hotbed of activity in the low-cost smartphone realm, with major smartphone OEMs pouring resources into the country. OnePlus is no exception, and will reportedly launch the OnePlus Z in India on July 10th. According to Android Central's sources, this is a "tentative" date, but barring any major hiccups between now and then, that's likely when we should expect to see what smartphone. One other previously unknown surrounding the OnePlus Z is its price, which will be critical to...
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