Every year, Qualcomm launches two flagship chips. One of them is considered to power the top-end Android models in the first half of the year, whereas the second one, the improved version of the former model equips the smartphones for the second half of the year. This year was no exception. The company has already launched both the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip and the enhanced Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. Apart from several minor improvements, the latter switches to TSMC’s 4nm process node, which better controls power consumption and heat dissipation. However, the architecture and many other features remain unchanged. Today, we heard some interesting news concerning the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
Qualcomm will announce the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 at the end of the year. This chip is said to use the same TSMC 4nm manufacturing process. But the CPU architecture will be completely changed.
As a Weibo blogger said, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 codenamed SM8550/Kailua will use a 1×Makalu-Elp + 2×Makalu + 2×Matterhon + 3×Klein R1 architecture. Simply put, the chipset will use one mega core of ARM Cortex-X3 as a performance core, two ARM Cortex-A720 cores, two Cortex-A710 cores, and three ARM Cortex-A510 small cores. It will also integrate the Adreno740 graphics processor.
As for the GPU, it’s a regular change, but the CPU architecture has changed a lot. In other words, unlike the current 1 + 3 + 4 three-cluster architecture, it will use a 1 + 2 + 2 + 3 quad-cluster architecture.
Thus, for the mid-cores, the company will use two sets of cores, which is believed to lead to more CPU scheduling problems. However, theoretically, it will be more flexible for various scenarios.
Well, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is going to see light in the fourth quarter of this year. There are rumors that the Xiaomi Mi 13 will debut it.
