As expected, Qualcomm hasn’t revealed what it has in store for the upcoming Snapdragon Summit. There’s still a long way to go for it. We might see the company tease the new products and technologies in the build-up to the event. For now, it has simply announced the dates and location for the Summit, which will once again happen in Hawaii. “Experience the next wave of tech at our biggest showcase of the year,” Qualcomm says. The company should be referring to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 here. While the name is not official yet, it’s a pretty straightforward guess. Last year, Qualcomm changed the naming scheme of its chipsets. The Snapdragon 888 successor arrived as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in December 2021.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will brings some notable changes
There have been already quite a few leaks about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. From what we have heard so far, TSMC will manufacture the new chipsets using its 4nm process nodes. Samsung Foundry manufactured the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 last year, while Qualcomm returned to TSMC for the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 earlier this year. Both of these are 4nm chips. Identified by model number SM8550 and codename Kailua, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is also rumored to feature a rather unusual CPU core arrangement. We are hearing of a 1+2+2+3 quad-cluster arrangement consisting of one Cortex-X3, two Cortex-A720, two Cortex-A710, and three Cortex-A510 CPU cores. This could be the first mobile processor to feature four different CPUs. Qualcomm has been using a triple-cluster CPU arrangement (1+3+4) since the Snapdragon 855 back in 2019. While the upcoming solution will still have one super core, the company is beefing up the middle cores with two Cortex-A720s and two Cortex-A710s. This should enable superior sustained performance. Despite one less efficiency core, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is said to be notably more power-efficient than the current solution. Early entry tests suggest an efficiency boost of around 15 percent. It’s still too early to draw any conclusion from this, but it should be an indication of what’s to come. As Qualcomm proceeds with the development of the upcoming chipset, more leaks about its performance and efficiency gains should surface online. We will keep you updated with all the latest information.
