Preliminary Snapdragon 875 specs suggest much-needed improvements to 5G

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 series chipsets are synonymous with Android flagships. While the smartphone world now includes multiple Snapdragon 865-powered smartphones, some early information about the Snapdragon 875 has already surfaced, giving us an idea about what to expect from the next generation of premium flagships.

According to the information received by 91mobiles, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 875 flagship processor, codenamed “SM8350”, will come with Snapdragon X60 5G modem for 5G connectivity(mmWave and Sub-6). The Snapdragon X60 modem is expected to cut down the overall cost of the chipset, which was one of the major concerns with Snapdragon 865 devices, driving the costs of all flagships to a higher price point. It’s currently unclear if the modem will be integrated or separate, but the former is more likely to be the case.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 875 is tipped to come with Kryo 685 CPU built on Arm v8 Cortex technology. Although the reports don’t mention the fabrication process, earlier rumours suggested that the next flagship Snapdragon SoC will be built on a 5nm manufacturing process by TSMC. On the graphics front, the Snapdragon 875 will be coupled with Adreno 660 GPU that will take care of the gaming and lighten the load of CPU. Specific clock frequencies haven’t been mentioned, but considering that the Adreno 650 could drive displays at QHD@144Hz or 4K@60Hz, we expect an increment on both fronts.

Furthermore, the chipset will be integrated with Spectra 580 image-processing engine(ISP), Adreno 665 Visual Processing Unit(VPU) to encode and decode ultra high-resolution videos and images. The Snapdragon 865 included the Spectra 480 image sensor, which could process 2 gigapixels per second from the camera. The upgrade is expected to bring higher resolution/higher frame rate video recording as well as support for higher resolution photography.

On to the audio front, the upcoming flagship chipset is said to come with low-power audio subsystem integrated with Qualcomm Aqstic Audio Technologies WCD9380 and WCD9385 audio codec.

The processor will come with Hexagon DSP with Hexagon Vector eXtensions and Hexagon Tensor Accelerator. It will support Quad-channel package-on-package (PoP) high-speed LPDDR5 SDRAM. Synchronous DRAM refers to synchronizing the memory’s frequencies with the microprocessor’s clock speeds to increase the processing throughput.

It supports External 802.11ax Wi-Fi, which refers to Wi-Fi 6 and something called “Bluetooth Milan”. The Wi-Fi 6 standard offers faster speeds and can also provide better connection even if the place is crowded. Also, with Wi-Fi 6, the file transfer between the devices via Wi-Fi will be faster as it improves overall latency. All smartphones powered by Snapdragon 865 support Wi-Fi 6.

A separate report suggested that there will be no Snapdragon 865+ in the second half of the year, so it seems like all Android flagships will have to stick to the current Snapdragon 865. 

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