The successor to the Snapdragon 888 may feature Leica technology

The successor to the Snapdragon 888 may feature Leica technology

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Qualcomm appears to be preparing to launch a toned down version of the Snapdragon 888 (SM8350) chip. The news comes from the Roland Quandt leaker, who says that, unlike the flagship Snapdragon 888, the simplified variant will not have an integrated system 5G modem.

The new chip (SM8325) will apparently power the main low-cost phones and it is unclear how it would be different from Snapdragon 870. As it was classified as a lower specification version of the Snapdragon 888, it is likely to be based on the 5 nm process. SoC can be targeted at developing markets where 5G networks have not yet been implemented.

SM8450

Quandt also learned that Qualcomm started testing the first samples of the Successor to Snapdragon 888. The chip is apparently known internally as ‘Waipio’ and its model number is SM8450. It will probably be revealed in late 2021, as is the norm.

The company is testing samples compatible with 12 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256 GB of storage. The camera capabilities of the next generation chip are also expected to receive a huge boost and it looks like Qualcomm has teamed up with optical specialist Leica for that purpose. The current test is apparently centered on a module known internally as “Leica1”.

The Snapdragon 888 was made by Samsung and the recently announced 5G modems (Snapdragon X62 and Snapdragon X65) are based on the 4nm process of chaebol. It is not known whether the successor to the Snapdragon 888 will also be built on a new process node.

ONE recent report says Qualcomm will retain Samsung’s 5nm technology this year and return to TSMC in 2022 for a flagship 4nm SoC.

SM7325

Quandt also revealed the existence of an intermediate chip. The SM7325 apparently has a core running at 2.7 GHz, three cores with clock speeds of 2.4 GHz and four cores with frequencies up to 1.8 GHz. The test platform supports up to 12 GB of LPDDR5 and 256 GB RAM of UFS 3.1 storage. The final product can support up to 16 GB of RAM.
A 5 nm medium-high chip called The Snapdragon 775 (SM7350) is also reportedly in the pipeline.

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