Following the official announcement of the Snapdragon 888 mobile platform at the annual Snapdragon Tech Summit Digital 2020, Qualcomm has listed the full specification of the new premium chipset. It is manufactured using the most advanced 5nm process technology and features leading mobile innovations in 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), gaming and camera technologies.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 mobile platform has a tri-cluster Kryo 680 CPU. The first cluster contain the prime CPU, which is based on ARM Cortex-X1 and clock speeds up to 2.84GHz. The second cluster has three Cortex-A78 cores that clock up to 2.45GHz and three Cortex-A55 low frequency cores clocked at 1.8GHz. When compared to its predecessor, the SD888 offers 25% increase in CPU performance while the Qualcomm Adreno 660 GPU onboard offers 35% faster graphics rendering.
It combines 5G, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth audio. It is equipped with the 3rd-gen Snapdragon X60 5G Modem-RF System for 5G sub-6 CA and mmWave, and Global 5G multi-SIM. It also includes the Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Mobile Connectivity System for Wi-Fi 6/ Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 and Qualcomm aptX suite. For processing AI, the platform is integrated with the newly re-designed 6th-gen Qualcomm AI Engine with the new Qualcomm Hexagon 780 processor to achieve performance up to 26 TOPS – 3x performance per watt improvement over previous generation.
There is also the 2nd-gen Qualcomm Sensing Hub, which comes with a low-power AI processor to perform activities such as audio event detection, lift and activity detection, and screen awake. Owing to the new Qualcomm Spectra 580 ISP, devices equipped with the SD888 have the capability to capture from three cameras simultaneously at up to 2.7 gigapixels per second. It supports up to 200MP single camera, up to 64MP dual cameras and up to 28MP triple cameras. Users can shoot videos in 4K HDR at 120fps as well as in HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite Gaming delivers Variable Rate Shading (VRS) to raise game rendering up to 30% and Qualcomm Game Quick Touch increases responsiveness by up to 20%. Other notable features include the Qualcomm Secure Processing Unit, Qualcomm Trusted Execution Environment, Type-1 Hypervisor, and support for Qualcomm Wireless Edge Services to ensure on-device security. Devices powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Mobile Platform will arrive by Q1 2021.
