Premium Phase SoC Will get a Cortex-X CPU Core

After a 2021/2022 product cycle that was a bit extra interesting than Qualcomm maybe would have preferred, 2023 has been a much more easy 12 months for the prolific SoC and mobile modem vendor. After releasing the primary of their Gen 2 household of elements earlier this 12 months with the flagship-class Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the corporate is making ready to iterate via the following step of its product stack with the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2. Aimed toward what’s turn out to be Qualcomm’s conventional $400 to $600 “premium” market section, which focuses on flagship-level options with extra modest efficiency and prices, for the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2, Qualcomm is aiming to ship a large efficiency enhance to the platform.

Positioned because the successor to final 12 months’s Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, this 12 months’s iteration of the Snapdragon 7 is, broadly talking, extra targeted on bettering efficiency than including options. Whereas final 12 months’s Gen 1 half added mmWave help and new CPU and GPU architectures – significantly Armv9 structure CPU cores – this 12 months there’s solely a handful of latest options. Rather than that, nonetheless is what Qualcomm is touting as one in all their greatest efficiency boosts ever for the Snapdragon 7 household. That is being enabled largely by a much-welcomed pivot from Samsung’s beleaguered 4nm course of to TSMC’s  4nm course of, mirroring the swap Qualcomm made final 12 months for the well-received mid-cycle Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 half.

Additionally new this 12 months, Qualcomm is dropping hints that this won’t be the one Snapdragon 7 Gen 2 half we see this 12 months, vis-a-vie the choice to launch their first Gen 2 half because the 7+ reasonably than the 7. In a nutshell, launching as a Snapdragon 7+ half leaves Qualcomm room to launch a vanilla Snapdragon 7 half in a while. To make certain, Qualcomm isn’t explicitly asserting any such half now, however there’s little motive to launch a 7+ first except that they had plans for one thing under it; in any other case they may have launched it as 7 half ala the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, which was all the time a one-chip stack.

By way of CPU group, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 retains the identical 1+3+4 CPU core configuration that we’ve seen for the previous few generations of the Snapdragon 7 household. The large information right here is that the top-performing Prime core is getting a major efficiency enchancment, as Qualcomm makes the swap from utilizing a barely increased clocked mid-core to utilizing a extra performant CPU structure altogether.

So, for the primary time ever for a Snapdragon 7 half, Qualcomm is tapping one in all Arm’s Cortex-X cores for the Prime core. The Cortex-X2 used right here is technically Arm’s previous-generation design, so it received’t be stepping on the toes of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and its Cortex-X3 core. However in comparison with the A710 core used for the 7 Gen 1’s Prime core (and seven+ Gen 2’s mid-cores), the Cortex-X2 represents a major enchancment in each IPC and clockspeeds. Because of this, the height clockspeed for the Prime core has gone from 2.4GHz to 2.91GHz, which compounds additional with the IPC good points of the extra advanced core.

All instructed, Qualcomm is touting an “as much as” 50% CPU efficiency enchancment for 7+ Gen 2 over the 7 Gen 1; just about all of that is coming from the brand new Prime core.

The trade-off is that such a big efficiency enhance is absolutely solely accessible for single-threaded workloads, since there’s solely the one Cortex-X2 core. The three mid (efficiency) cores are as soon as once more Cortex-A710 based mostly, and are clocked all of two% increased than earlier than. As such, the 7+ Gen 1 isn’t going to see big good points on closely multithreaded workloads. The improved energy effectivity of TSMC’s 4nm course of ought to pay some dividends there, however a few of these good points have been invested into making that power-hungry Cortex-X2 viable from a battery life perspective.

In the meantime, the 7+ Gen 2 additionally incorporates a sooner Adreno GPU. As has been the case with Qualcomm’s built-in GPUs for a few generations now, the corporate isn’t assigning a product quantity to it – not to mention disclosing vital architectural particulars – so there’s a restricted quantity of element we will share. Based mostly on the function abstract, it doesn’t appear to be that is utilizing the newer GPU structure from the 8 Gen 2; so it could appear Qualcomm has included a much bigger model of their current GPU and nearly definitely given it a wholesome clockspeed enhance.

No matter is the case, the GPU efficiency expectations for the brand new SoC are vital: Qualcomm is boasting an enormous 2x efficiency enchancment over the 7 Gen 1 – a platform that solely delivered 20% greater than its personal predecessor. Despite the fact that these aren’t flagship-class SoCs, Qualcomm nonetheless likes to place the Snapdragon 7 sequence as being match for gaming smartphones, particularly in China, so it’s not too stunning to see Qualcomm investing a lot into GPU efficiency.

All instructed, Qualcomm is touting a 13% enchancment in energy effectivity over the 7 Gen 1, at the least on an “prolonged day by day use” foundation. The swap to TSMC’s 4nm course of ought to pay vital dividends, as evidenced by final 12 months’s 8+ Gen 1 half, however on the similar time it’s clear that Qualcomm has been investing portion of these good points into bettering general efficiency.

Feeding the dragon is a 32-bit (twin 16-bit) LPDDR5 reminiscence controller. In contrast to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the 7+ Gen 2 will not be getting help for sooner LPDDR5X reminiscence, which suggests establishment reigns for the Snapdragon 7 household. On this case, this implies help for reminiscence speeds as much as LPDDR5-6400, which works out to 25.6GB/second of reminiscence bandwidth. Contrasted with the numerous CPU and GPU efficiency will increase, there’s going to be much more stress positioned on Qualcomm’s cache and reminiscence subsystem to maintain the assorted processing blocks fed.

Talking of which, it’s not simply the CPU and GPU blocks which have seen main efficiency will increase. Qualcomm’s Hexagon DSP/AI engine block has additionally acquired a major efficiency tune-up, rivaling the 2x enhance to the GPU. Qualcomm was gentle on the technical particulars right here, nonetheless in our briefing there was no point out product of options reminiscent of INT4 or micro-tiling – two main options of the next-gen Hexagon block on the 8 Gen 2 – so it appears probably that it is a closely beefed up model of the Hexagon block used on the earlier 7 Gen 1.

One piece of Snapdragon 8 expertise that’s making its manner right down to the Snapdragon 7, nonetheless, is its triple 18-bit Spectra ISP. Changing the 14-bit unit featured in earlier generations of the platform, the 18-bit unit on the 7+ Gen 2 will deliver help for triple publicity computational HDR video seize, in addition to improved low gentle pictures, which Qualcomm calls their Mega Low Gentle function. The top result’s that the 7+ Gen 2 can seize at increased resolutions when utilizing zero shutter lag performance, and mixed with the up to date GPU, can now file 4K video at as much as 60fps, doubling the 7 Gen 1’s 4K30 restrict.

Lastly, rounding out the package deal is a reprise of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X62 built-in modem. Like final 12 months’s SoC, it is a mmWave + Sub-6 Launch 16 design that may obtain a theoretical most obtain charge of 4.4Gbps. This 12 months’s design does include a twist, nonetheless: twin SIM twin energetic (DSDA) help, which is one other first for the Snapdragon 7 platform. Each energetic radios on 7+ Gen 2 help 5G and 4G communications, permitting twin SIM customers to make use of primarily no matter community they’d like on both radio. That is one other premium function, that till now, had been restricted to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 platform.

As for non-cellular connectivity, the 7+ Gen 2 makes use of a FastConnect 6900 radio system. This can be a comparatively modest replace over the sooner 6700 radio, bumping up Bluetooth help to model 5.3 of the protocol, and rising the height bandwidth of the 2×2 stream Wi-Fi 6E radio to three.6Gbps because of dual-band simultaneous (DBS) help.

Wrapping issues up, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 can be coming to market in a short time. In keeping with Qualcomm, handsets utilizing the SoC can be obtainable later this month, with Redmi and Realme among the many OEMs slated to launch telephones based mostly across the new chip.