9to5Google
By Andrew Romero & Abner Li
November 30, 2021
Flagship smartphones in 2022 will see the newest chip from Qualcomm, which uses a new naming scheme introduced just this month.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
The chip is made up of a 1+3+4 configuration led by the Arm Cortex X2 Prime core, which is clocked up to 2.995GHz. The chip is made up of three Cortex A71 Performance cores at 2.5GHz and four 1.8GHz Cortex A51s Efficiency cores.
On the new Snapdragon SoC, the Kryo CPU is 20% faster. Even though that's the case, it offers power savings of 30% in comparison to previous models. Similar to the Snapdragon 888+, the 8 Gen 1 offers support for up to 16GB of LPDDR5 memory. All of this is built on a 4nm process, as opposed to previous 5nm builds.
Where the new chip by Qualcomm really shines is its image processing performance. The ISP (image signal processor) equipped in this SoC can capture 4,096x more camera data than its previous 14-bit predecessor. That is the equivalent of taking 240 12MP shots in a matter of one second.
As far as video is concerned, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is powerful enough to aid in 8K HDR video capture at 30FPS. Not only that, but with the new SoC, the 3rd Gen Sensing Hub adds an always-on ISP to compliment an AI processor, DSP, and memory. What does that mean? Well, this allows the front-facing camera to run at an extremely low level of power consumption to enable always-on face unlock. This will allow for phones to lock when your face isn't detected by the camera.
Other improvements made to the new chip include a 4th gen Snapdragon X65 5G modem that can reach up to 10Gbps, Wi-Fi 6 and 6E speeds, and Bluetooth 5.2.
Overall, the new chip houses a lot of great improvements to AI and camera performance. You'll likely see the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in phones by Black Shark, Honor, Motorola, OnePlus, and many more manufacturers in 2022. The first device to run this new chip is expected in late 2021.