Snapdragon (system on chip)

Snapdragon is the name for a system-on -a- chip family, the microprocessor component is based on the ARM architecture. It was developed by Qualcomm for use in smartphones and similar mobile computers.

General Information

The Snapdragon has been developed for real-time applications in mobile devices with low power consumption and battery operation. The first SoC ( system-on -a-chip ) of the Snapdragon family were the QSD8650 and QSD8250 the ( available since Q4 2008), both of them built both a processor core, a " mobile unit " and the GPS receiver. The processor core is called the Snapdragon Scorpion and is comparable to the ARM Cortex- A8 core. All Snapdragon processors contain arithmetic units for decoding HDTV with a resolution of 720p. The newer QSD8672 chips (S4 ) can be produced with a minimum feature size of 45 nm and two cores with up to 1.7 GHz.

Variants

Qualcomm manufactures the series S1, S2, S3, S4, and since 2013, the newer series 200, 400, 600, 800 and 805 The latest version is the Snapdragon -805 series. S1 to S3 are similar to the Snapdragon Processor families - called the ARM Cortex A8 or A9 and be as Scorpion - based on the ARMv7 instruction set; the newer S4 processors - and 200-805 series - are based upon an architecture developed by Qualcomm Krait and said micro- architecture that is ARMv7 compatible. It reaches roughly the computing power of an ARM Cortex- A15, but has the advantage that it is energy efficient and battery-powered devices such as smart phones enables a longer battery life. Since the S4 model series as a unique selling point with built- in GPS receiver SoC as well as Bluetooth, WiFi and cellular modem are available, so in addition to simplified design and a more cost and energy savings is connected.

In January 2013, Qualcomm explained that the previous model series S4 Play, S4 Plus, Pro S4 and S4 Prime would be replaced by the new series 200 to 800.

In June 2013, the series Snapdragon 600 (maximum 1.7 GHz CPU clock, four Krait -300 cores, Adreno 320 GPU ) and Snapdragon were 800 with the Adreno 330 GPU and quad-core processor ( Krait 400) with maximum processor clock presented of 2.3 GHz; integrated in the SoC are each access to LTE networks with up to 150 Mbps and a wireless network card ( 802.11ac ), GPS and Bluetooth. Both types are produced with a modified micro-architecture and a new 28- nm manufacturing process of the Taiwanese foundry TSMC. In the same year in November, a Snapdragon SoC 805, the CPU clock rates of up to 2.5 GHz and enables appeared on the improved GPU Adreno 420 video standard Ultra HD - with resolutions up to 3840 × 2160 pixels - supported. The Snapdragon 805 is to make it possible to playback the recording of 4K video.

On Snapdragon -based, special equipment

The first Snapdragon -based device was the Toshiba TG01 smartphone.

In June 2009, ASUS showed with the Eee PC for the first time, a PC -like device with a Snapdragon processor; on him ran Google's Android operating system.

The Google Nexus One (pictured on January 5, 2010), is an Android - reference system with Snapdragon processor (1 GHz Qualcomm QSD 8250 ) for the first time. It is manufactured by HTC and features the Android OS 2.2.

The 2013 Nokia released Lumia 1020 has a special Snapdragon S4 processor that supports the 41 - megapixel camera from Zeiss. Normally, the S4- processor is not able to process such a high resolution camera.

Possible operating systems

The Snapdragon architecture is supported by various systems:

  • Android
  • BrewMP ( developed by Qualcomm operating system " Mobile Platform" )
  • BlackBerry 10
  • Firefox OS
  • HP webOS
  • Linux
  • Windows Mobile
  • Windows Phone 7
  • Windows Phone 8
  • Microsoft Windows RT

Similar platforms

  • Intel Atom ( an x86 processor with graphics processor, not ARM)
  • A4, A5 and A6 Apple Apple
  • Exynos from Samsung
  • Fusion of AMD ( an x86 processor with graphics processor, not ARM)
  • Freescale i.MX
  • Nomadik from ST -Ericsson ( a joint venture of STMicroelectronics and Ericsson )
  • OMAP from Texas Instruments
  • PXA by Marvell (formerly Intel XScale )
  • SH -Mobile Renesas (own RISC processor platform, no ARM)
  • Nvidia Tegra
Microarchitecture Foundry model Android (operating system) Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless Apple A4 Apple A5 Apple A6 Freescale Semiconductor
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