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Fast New Qualcomm 820 Snapdragon Process Set To Improve Smartphone Battery Life + 4K Streaming

By David Richards| 6 Aug 2015


	Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 820 chip processor which is set to be used by HTC, Sony, LG and Alcatel One Touch is set to be built around a 14nm FinFET manufacturing process. That’s significantly more efficient than the 20nm process used for the Snapdragon 810, and should see improved power and battery performance according to analysts. It also puts it on par with the FinFET-produced Samsung Exynos 7420 chips which is set to be used in the new Galaxy Note smartphone due for release next week. According to China-based source GForGames who leaked the the documents claim “that the new processor delivers significant thermal improvements” compared to the 810 which is good news, because the 810 was plagued with complaints about overheating. The slides leaked also point to the Snapdragon 820 using custom-built ARM-based “Hydra” processor cores – not ARM stock designs – which reportedly offer a 35% performance improvement. Samsung is currently chopping the number of cores down from the octa-core 810 – the 820 will only be quad-core. The Snapdragon 820 also appears set to use an Adreno 530 GPU with 40% improved performance and 30% power improvements. So what can the new chip support? As it’s a top-end chip, you’ll get support for (1) dual-channel LPDDR4 memory up to 1,688Mhz, (2) 4K video decoding at 60 frames per second, and (3) 28-megapixel image capture at 30 frames per second. Qualcomm is expected to officially unveil the Snapdragon 820 at an August 11 event in Los Angeles. The Snapdragon 820 will feature in some of the top bill phones of 2016, and could appear as early as the end of this year.

About Post Author

David Richards has been writing about technology for more than 30 years. A former Fleet Street journalist, he wrote the Award Winning Series on the Federated Ships Painters + Dockers Union for the Bulletin that led to a Royal Commission. He is also a Logie Winner for Outstanding Contribution To TV Journalism with a story called The Werribee Affair. In 1997, he built the largest Australian technology media company and prior to that the third largest PR company that became the foundation company for Ogilvy PR. Today he writes about technology and the impact on both business and consumers.