Qualcomm has previewed its new flagship smartphone processor, the Snapdragon 888, at the Snapdragon Tech Summit held online. Expected to launch in phones next year, the processor includes its third-generation 5G modem, a new AI engine to boost performance and an upgraded photo sensor.
The company demonstrated the capabilities of the new chip with a remote-control car race on a private 5G network set up by Verizon and Ericsson. Two race cars were connected to the mmWave network and controlled over 5G using a Snapdragon 888 reference design with the Snapdragon X60 5G modem. The drivers controlled the cars from over a mile away, watching the race on low-latency streams that tracked the cars’ position on a dynamic map using the newest capabilities of the Qualcomm Location Suite.
The Snapdragon 888 with the third-generation X60 5G modem supports mmWave and sub-6 GHz frequencies across all major bands worldwide, as well as 5G carrier aggregation, global multi-SIM, standalone and non-standalone 5G, and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing.
The new sixth-generation Qualcomm AI Engine, with a fully re-engineered Qualcomm Hexagon processor, offers improved performance and power efficiency over Qualcomm's previous generation, operating at 26 tera operations per second (TOPS). The platform includes the second-generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub, which incorporates lower-power always-on AI processing, the company said.
The processor also comes with an update of the Snapdragon Elite Gaming features in the Qualcomm Adreno GPU and a faster Qualcomm Spectra ISP. The latter allows users to capture photos and videos at 2.7 gigapixels per second or roughly 120 photos at 12MP resolution, which is up to 35 percent faster than the previous generation.
Xiaomi said its flagship Mi 11 will be one of the first smartphones to use the new processor, and Oppo said its next Find X series will launch with the 888 in Q1 2021. Other supporters mentioned by Qualcomm in a statement included NTT Docomo, OnePlus, Sony Mobile, Asus, Black Shark, Lenovo, LG, Meizu, Motorola, Nubia, Realme, Sharp, Vivo and ZTE.
