HoTWiReZ's DoMaiN

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<p align="center"></p><p><p>Today Qualcomm announces three new SoCs in the mid- and low-end Snapdragon lineup. At the lowest end we find the Snapdragon 425 offering a very frugal CPU configuration consisting of 4x Cortex A53's clocked in at 1.4GHz. The chipset is aimed at replacing the Snapdragon 410 and 412&nbsp;and improves on them with an upgrade on the modem block as well as media decoder and encoder capabilities, now enabling 1080p HEVC decode and encode.</p>

<p>The Snapdragon 435 replaces the Snapdragon 430 which was only announced just a few months ago and also sees an improvement in the modem block used as we see it now going from UE Category 4 to UE Category 7. On the CPU side we see&nbsp;a 200MHz boost in the frequency of the faster of the two&nbsp;quad-core A53 clusters, now reaching 1.4GHz. In both the Snapdragon 425 and 435 we don't see a change in the GPU but it's possible clocks have changed; Unfortunately details on the matter are still sparse. Both the Snapdragon 425 and 435 are manufactured on a "28nm LP" process but sadly it wasn't specified which foundry is manufacturing them.</p>

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);">
<thead>
<tr class="tgrey">
<td colspan=" 5">New 2016 Mid- to Low-End Snadpragons</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="tlblue">
<td>SoC</td>
<td>Snapdragon 425

(MSM8917)</td>
<td>Snapdragon 435

(MSM8940)</td>
<td>Snapdragon 625

(MSM8953)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey" style="text-align: center;">CPU</td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">4x A53 @ 1.4GHz</span></td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">4x A53 @ 1.4GHz</span>



<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">4x A53 @ ? GHz</span></td>
<td style="text-align: center;">4x A53 @ 2.0GHz



<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">4x A53 @ ? GHz</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey" style="text-align: center;">Memory</td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">1x 32-bit @ 667MHz</span><br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">LPDDR3</span><br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">5.3GB/s b/w</span></td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">1x 32-bit @ 800MHz</span><br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">LPDDR3</span><br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">6.4GB/s b/w</span></td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">2x 32-bit @ 933MHz</span><br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">LPDDR3</span><br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">7.45GB/s b/w</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey" style="text-align: center;">GPU</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">Adreno 308</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">Adreno 505</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">Adreno 506</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey" style="text-align: center;">Encode/

Decode</td>
<td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">1080p

H.264 & HEVC (Decode)</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">2160p

H.264 & HEVC (Decode)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey" style="text-align: center;">Camera/ISP</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">Dual ISP

16MP</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">Dual ISP

21MP</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">Dual ISP

24MP</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey" style="text-align: center;">Integrated

Modem</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">"X6 LTE"&nbsp;Cat. 4

150Mbps DL 75Mbps UL



2x20MHz C.A.&nbsp;

(DL & UL)</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">"X8 LTE"&nbsp;Cat. 7

300Mbps DL 100Mbps UL



2x20MHz C.A.&nbsp;

(DL & UL)</td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">"X9 LTE"&nbsp;Cat. 7</span><br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">300Mbps DL 150Mbps UL</span><br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">2x20MHz C.A.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center;" />
<span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); text-align: center; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">(DL & UL)</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey" style="text-align: center;">Mfc. Process</td>
<td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">28nm LP</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">14nm LPP</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

<p>Most importantly comes the announcement of the Snapdragon 625. This is the successor to the Snapdragon 617 which along with the 615 has seen quite a lot of success in mid-range and budget smartphones. The CPUs remain two quad-core clusters of Cortex A53's but now the performance cluster is clocked at up to 2GHz representing a large&nbsp;increase to the 1.5GHz SoCs which the 625 is replacing. The GPU has also been upgraded from an Adreno 405 to a newer generation Adreno 506. The modem again has seen a slight upgrade from an X8 to an X9 block, allowing for an increase in the uplink performance if the network supports it.</p>

<p>The biggest surprise out of today's announcements is the fact that the Snapdragon 625 is manufactured on Samsung's/GlobalFoundry's 14nm LPP process. Qualcomm thus is the first vendor to announce a non-high-end SoC to use a new FinFET manufacturing process which is quite astonishing as I hadn't expected vendors be able to do the migration so early on in the technology's lifetime, which may be a positive indicator that we might be seeing FinFET adopted across the mid-range earlier than expected.</p>

<p>The new SoC should be sampling to vendors in mid-2016 with availability in commercial devices in the second half of 2016.</p>
</p>

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Source: AnandTech
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