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| Logo of SOC manufacturers |
SOC or system on a chip forms the building block of any device. Our smartphones are equipped with an SOC which handles all the processing needs, provides memory for data , handles peripheries and so on. Basically a system on a chip consists of a processor with various modules like RAM, storage, gpu, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and so on. All of them are combined in a chip which forms an SOC.
In the smartphone world we have Qualcomm, Mediatek, Samsung's Exynos, Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin and also the newer Xiaomi's Surge or Pinecone chipsets. These are the major players which take the licensing rights from ARM (The one who makes the architecture and provides it to companies to make tweaks) and make changes according to their needs and demand.
Here lets talk about some of the SOC's of Qualcomm. We will talk about the others in the upcoming posts.
Qualcomm has been the King of SOC's since a long time powering most of the devicesespecially midrange and flagships. Their dominance in the budget category is also improving. They normally take the architectural rights from ARM and make changes involving good amount of research and finally provide with products which are highly reliable and powerful.
Qualcomm Snapdragon has quite a few group of SOC's which are under 200, 400, 600, 800 series. They also have SOC's for smart watches however we are not interested in that now.
The Snapdragon 200 series is too basic and not worth having in any device however the exception is HTC. So let's directly check out the 400 series.
Snapdragon 400 series:
The various SOC's under the series that are being used widely are 425, 430 and 435
425:
The Snapdragon 425 is the entry level SOC used in ultra low budget devices like the Xiaomi redmi 4A. This SOC has 4 cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.4gHz and has adreno 308 gpu. It is a 64 bit SOC having support for Bluetooth v4.1, BLE and regular WiFi standards. It can support camera sensor upto 16MP with 1080p at 30fps video recording. It supports Qualcomm quick charge 2.0 and is based on 28nm process.
It supports LPDDR3 RAM with a clock speed of 667MHz. It is based on 28nm process.
430:
The Snapdragon 430 is a much bigger leap from 425 as it has 8 cores based on cortex A53 and clocked at 1.4gHz. It comes with powerful adreno 505 gpu and supports 1080p resolution. It is also a 64 bit SOC with support for Bluetooth v4.1, BLE and regular WiFi standards. The camera sensor can have 21MP and is capable of 1080p video recording at 30fps. It supports Qualcomm quick charge 3.0 and the SOC is based on 28nm process.
It supports LPDDR3 RAM which has a clock frequency of 800MHz.
435:
The Snapdragon 430 and 435 are identical to a greater extent having the same architecture, cores, memory speed, camera support as well as same process. The main difference lies in the use of modem i.e the 435 uses X9 LTE modem as against X6 LTE modem in 430. This helps in carrier aggregation as well as the peak download speeds go upto 300Mbps as compared to 150 in 430. The peak upload speed is 100Mbps in 435 and 75Mbps in 430.
Snapdragon 600 series:
This Snapdragon series forms the most popular SOC's of Qualcomm. They are widely used in midrange devices and provide performance which is almost the same as a flagship.
The SOC's under this series are 625, 626, 650, 652, 653. There are others like the Snapdragon 61X series however they are notorious for heating and no more popular.
625/626:
The Snapdragon 625 and 626 are almost identical with the main difference in the clock speed and as Qualcomm claims 10% increase in performance and efficiency for 626 as compared to 625. The main highlighting factor of these SOC's is the use of 14nm process. This makes it highly battery efficient as well as improves performance.
The 625 has 8 cores based on cortex A53 and clocked at 2.0 gHz whereas the 626 has the cores clocked at 2.2 gHz. The GPU used is adreno 506 and the max megapixel count by cameras is 24MP. The camera sensor can record 4K at 30fps. It has support for Bluetooth v4.1 , BLE and normal Wi-Fi standards. It comes with Qualcomm quick charge 3.0 support. The SOC makes use of LPDDR3 RAM with 933Mhz frequency.
These SOC's are used in Xiaomi redmi note 4, Lenovo P2 and so on.
650:
The Snapdragon 650 is a 6 core SOC with 2 high powered cores i.e cortex A72 clocked at 1.8 gHz and 4 efficient cores clocked at 1.4gHz. The GPU is adreno 510 which is quite powerful and has support for LPDDR3 RAM with frequency of 933 MHZ. This SOC is based on 28nm process and comes with Qualcomm quick charge 3.0 or 2.0 support. The camera supports megapixel count upto 21MP and can capture 4K. The maximum resolution supported is 2K.
It supports normal Wi-Fi bands and standards and Bluetooth v4.1, BLE and GPS.
The devices that come with sd650 SOC are Xiaomi redmi note 3, Xperia X and so on.
652/653:
Both these SOC's are similar or rather identical with the main difference in clock speed. The 652 and 653 comes with 8 cores with 4 high powered cores based on cortex A72 and remaining 4 based on cortex A53. The Snapdragon 652 has the higher powered ones clocked at 1.8 gHz and the lower ones at 1.4gHz. whereas the 653 has them clocked at max upto 1.95gHz for the higher powered ones.
They are based on the 28nm process and have support for LPDDR3 RAM with 933MHZ frequency. The max camera resolution that is supported is 21MP with the capability to record 4K at 30fps. The screen resolution that can be supported is 2K and the rest of the peripherals like Bluetooth, WiFi , etc. remain same as that of the 650.
These SOC's are used in Samsung's A9 pro, C9 pro, Coolpad cool 1 and so on.
Snapdragon 800 series:
This series is the flagship of Qualcomm. It consists of high power SOC's like the newest 835, last year's 821 and 820, 810 and so on. The main SOC's to consider now are Snapdragon 835 and 820/821. The Snapdragon 810 was a powerful SOC however was known for heating issues leading to frequent slow down or stutter in devices with the exception of Nexus 6P.
835:
The Snapdragon 835 was announced in January 2017 and is based on the 10nm process with the help of Samsung. Both Samsung and Qualcomm were in a contract for research related to 835 although Samsung has its own version i.e the Exynos 8895.
Speaking of it in detail it is based on the KRYO 280 architecture which is a semi-custom architecture for higher efficiency and power. It has X16 LTE modem which makes it capable of having peak download speeds upto 1Gbps and peak upload speeds upto 150Mbps. The addition in Wi-Fi standards include 802.11ad, ac wave 2 apart from the regular standards. It also supports 60Ghz WiFi band apart from 2.4 and 5gHz.
Also with better Wi-Fi standards, the Bluetooth version that it supports is 5.0
Speaking of camera the megapixel count may go upto 16 for 2 camera sensors or dual cameras and 32MP for single sensor.
It supports 4K video recording at 30fps and playback at 60fps.
The max screen resolution is 4K which is used in the Sony Xperia XZ premium.
As said earlier, it is based on KRYO 280 architecture which consists of 8 cores with the higher powered ones clocked at 2.45gHz and the lower powered ones can go upto 1.9gHz. The GPU is adreno 540. It supports LPDDR4 RAM with 1866MHz frequency.
It supports Qualcomm quick charge 4.0 with support for fast wireless charging.
This SOC is used in Samsung's S8 and S8 plus. Sony has also used it in their XZ premium and other brands are also expected to release their flagship with this SOC.
821/820 :
Like the 652 and 653 the Snapdragon 821 and 820 are identical with the main difference in the clock speed and Qualcomm claims 10% rise in performance. The 820/821 is based on KRYO architecture with 4 cores and based on 14nm process. 2 of the cores are higher powered with the Snapdragon 820 having a max. clock speed of 2.15gHz and the 821 has a max. clock speed of 2.35gHz. The remaining cores are clocked at 1.6gHz. It has adreno 530 as GPU.
Like the 835 it supports similar Wi-Fi bands and standards as well as has support for Bluetooth v4.1.
The cameras can have sensors upto 28MP resolution and are capable of 4K video recording at 30fps. It has LTE X12 modem with 600Mbps peak download speeds and 150Mbps upload.
It supports LPDDR4 RAM with frequency of 1833MHz.
It supports Qualcomm quick charge 3.0
This SOC was used in OnePlus 3T, Samsung S7 and edge (USA variant), LG G5, V20, etc.
Both the flagship chipsets are VR ready as they support Vulkan API 1.0.
These were some of the SOC's of Qualcomm which are in use these days. There are many unreleased SOC's however the ones commonly used with stable performance have been included here. If you find the post long and still have difficulty in deciding the order of performance, I have made a summary of SOC's based on pure performance or based on practical usage
835> 821 ~ 820 > 653 ~ 652 > 650 > 625 ~ 626 > 435 ~ 430 > 425
Thanks for being patient and have a great day.
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