For today's smart phones, the processor has become one of the most valued part of everyone.And most of the current market for Android phones, Qualcomm Snapdragon each year's flagship chip are crucial because the current cell phone processing The device can basically achieve the "grand unification," integrated within the smart processor features embodied in the undoubtedly the next year will be the handset manufacturers into consumers can clearly perceived specific features. Last week, Qualcomm introduced the next-generation mobile platform Snapdragon 845 at the Snapdragon Tech Summit, which undoubtedly signals some of the features of its flagship smartphone next year. Snapdragon 845 mobile platform.
Basic Information:
▲ Source of the graphic anandtech
First of all, look at the Snapdragon 845 basic performance: Snapdragon 835 second-generation Samsung 10nm LPP FINFET process, four performance core + four energy-efficient core, KRYO385 architecture, the core clocked at horror 2.8GHz, while the small core Frequency is 1.8GHz. Each core has a dedicated L2 cache, and eight core shared 2MB L3 cache. In addition, the Snapdragon 835 GPU upgrade to Adreno 630, the official did not disclose the specific data, compared to the Adreno 540 can Up to 30% performance and 30% power reduction Built-in X20 LTE Modem for downstream speeds up to 1.2Gbps For ISP, the Snapdragon 845 is upgraded to Spectra 280 ISP and supports 720p @ 480Fps slow motion video. In the Snapdragon 845, Hexagon 685 DSP and CPU, GPU form an artificial intelligence system, and the Snapdragon 845 also integrates the Secure Processing unit to ensure the security of the mobile phone, including fingerprint, iris, voice, face Including biometric identification above is the basic information Xiaolong 845.
We all know that the core of a processor architecture and its technology to ensure the performance of its basic performance, and all the core scheduling strategy to a certain extent affect the user's actual experience in these two points, the Snapdragon 845 have brought us surprises.
First of all, the most commonly mentioned process, in last year's Snapdragon 835 article, I mentioned: Snapdragon 835 Samsung 10nm FinFET LPE process, the current semiconductor technology can achieve the highest level of production, but this time using LPE process, does not rule out Qualcomm will be upgraded in the follow-up to an LPP process version.And in fact, Qualcomm directly hit the face, did not launch an upgraded version of the 835, but the LPP technology directly applied to the Snapdragon 845.
Generally speaking, LPE (Low Power Earl) will mostly be applied on the CPU that starts testing the water after the new technology is introduced. However, because the package area and power consumption are not mature enough in technology, it is called 'early low-power version' After some time of maturity and optimization, will be an LPP (Low Power Plus), also known as 'low-power enhanced version' due to Qualcomm on the 835 did not launch the LPP iteration on the 820 platform Version (Irresponsible speculation: Probably the Snapdragon 835 performance on the LPE is good enough, or high-pass did not want to do an LPP version, but to focus on the next generation of products.) But in any case, The process, the Snapdragon 845 or give us an unexpected surprise.
Architecture, the Snapdragon 845 still extended the name of KRYO, from KRYO 280 upgrade to KRYO 385, 4 +8 eight core, the core clocked at 2.8GHz, and support for three nuclear launch, so we all suspect KRYO 385 ARM The latest generation of A75 depth changes made, while the small core may be based on A55 depth changes. In fact, ARM officials have already introduced 'Built on ARM Cortex Technology' technology that allows vendors to re-modify the public version of the framework according to their needs, For example, vendors can customize the size of the command window to increase the IPC size according to their needs, but the width of the decoder or the execution pipeline is beyond the scope of modification. This semi-custom design allows manufacturers to differentiate their products from the ARM version So we do not have to tangle what the so-called 'magic change' are the same strain.
According to ARM's official description of the A75, the A75 delivers 20% better performance than the A73 and 15% more throughput in memory replication at the same frequency, while the A75 clocked at 10nm spans up to 3GHz, A73 increased by 30%, power consumption and A73 basically the same. In contrast, the nucleus of the Snapdragon 845 reached a horrible 2.8GHz (basic to a limit state), CPU performance than KRYO 280 increased 25-30% in the data , KRYO385 comparison KRYO 280 and A75 comparison A73 is relatively close.
In general, the mobile processor is mostly cautious about the frequency, because in the actual experience, compared to the frequency of the ultimate performance point of that boost, the power consumption of the user's perception is more obvious, and the power for the actual frequency can The limit reached also has a very big influence.So you can see, the general mobile processors are very concerned about the power consumption, in order to reduce power consumption at low frequency.The Qualcomm directly to the clock speed to 2.8GHz, the power consumption challenge One can imagine, and the Qualcomm has not been expressed for the power consumption of Snapdragon 845, so we are currently cautious optimistic about the Snapdragon 845 power consumption.
Also you can see that Qualcomm specifically referred to Arm DynamIQ when it introduced KRYO architecture, another surprise that Snapdragon 845 brought us. Compared to Big.little, DyanmIQ redefined multi-core microarchitecture and DynamIQ's largest The characteristic is that in a cluster of DynamIQ clusters, the number of Cortex-A CPUs can range from single-core to 8-core, and also supports mashups between heterogeneous CPUs. However, on the Snapdragon 845, we still see that Qualcomm still retains The traditional project: aSMP (two clusters of core control 4aSMP), but also from the side reflects the Snapdragon 845 may use the DynamIQ Big.LITTLE architecture (DyanmIQ also supports non-Big.Little architecture.) DynamIQ is characterized by 'flexibility' The more the pursuit of the use of single-core.And perhaps also based on this, Qualcomm only have the courage to pull the clock to the 2.8GHz.
(To put it another way) Based on that, let's make a non-liability guess for the next generation of midrange processors: 1 + 7 (1 A75 + 7 A55) or 2 + 6 (2 A75 + 6 A55) This combines the efficiency and performance of the design.
In the GPU, in the world of Android, Adreno said I am afraid no one refused to accept.And although Qualcomm officials are not currently published Adreno more detailed technical parameters, but according to official data, Adreno 630 540 compared to the performance increase of 30 % (A little higher than 540 vs. 530), a 30% reduction in power consumption, and a 2.5x increase in data throughput on the interface, which is enough to make people happy Other places, Adreno also supports OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan2, DxNext various standards.
In addition, the Snapdragon 845, also added a layer of 3MB of system cache, which DynamIQ requires all processors within the cluster unified shared L3 cache coincides with the official argument is that by limiting the 40% 75% of the memory access bandwidth to reduce power consumption, translate adult words: Some data no longer go through the real RAM, in order to achieve more power-saving purposes.
Overall, in this generation of CPU performance, the progress of the single-core performance of the Snapdragon 845 may be far more than the Snapdragon 835 Snapdragon 820 compared to such a level, the single-core performance in the powerful Apple A series has been hanging The situation, the Snapdragon 845 may give us regained confidence in the power consumption, just based on the current Qualcomm DEMO released at the time of the show, which is slightly better than the 835 level.But in view of the 835 itself Power control on the good, I think it is not unacceptable, after all, fish (performance) and bear's paw (power) can not have both.
About artificial intelligence: For nowadays hot AI, although Qualcomm has never separately advertised in this regard, but in fact has not been absent in this area Qualcomm 835 Snapdragon 835, Snapdragon 835 added to the TensorFlow and Halide framework TensorFlow is Google's second-generation artificial intelligence learning system based on DistBelief, which is used in many machine learning areas such as voice and image recognition.
In this respect, different from Kirin 970 and Apple A11 bionic models, Qualcomm does not adopt the way of independent AI chip, but follows the way of CPU + GPU + DSP. So far, the AI overall brought by Snapdragon 845 Processing performance has been tripled.This provides a single camera, including the background blur, Face ID unlock to improve the user experience features.In the current AI is not the decisive phase, Qualcomm or Shang Tang, Face ++, ellipticlabs these companies together to establish AI eco-environment.
Connectivity, baseband has always been a good example of Qualcomm, Snapdragon X20 LTE Modem supports up to 1.2Gbps LTE download speeds, support for 5 * CA / 4 * 4 MIMO, compared to the X16 Modem, peak rate and real network environment speed Are increased by 20%, while in actual use, X20 LTE Modem will support dual-card dual VoLTE.
But in addition, there is a detail that I prefer: Qualcomm TrueWireless, can make the phone connected with multiple Bluetooth terminals. In simple terms, the past solution is the phone data → right headphone → left headphone, and now it has become Mobile phones are about the left and right headphone transmission data. Think about how many of your favorite split Bluetooth headset because of the delay can not chop the hand, the snapdragon 845 is finally not such a problem.
Spectra 280 ISP: Since the Snapdragon 800, Qualcomm has evolved in the ISP until the Snapdragon 845, supports Ultra HD Premium shooting, 16 million pixel 60Fps video, 720p 480fps slow motion video capture, up to 16 million pairs of double Support.However, I believe Xiaodian 845 provides depth sensing and hardware face recognition looks easier for ordinary users.And I believe that next year, equipped with a large number of Xiao Long 845 flagship aircraft will also claim that they support similar iPhoneX same '3D Face Recognition'.
QC4 / 4 +: The only thing that is exciting is to support the PD protocol, after charging a QC4 charging head to give iPhoneX charging it, I heard that to 14W, is not the United States ... ...
In addition, Snapdragon 845 also provides hardware-level security measures (SPU), provides fingerprint, iris, voice, face, these biometric, different data for different user password management and the SPU Itself belongs to the highest level of system hardware, can be independently powered, so it will not be easily cracked software.
to sum up:
The first thing to talk about an interesting thing: the importance of the processor on the smart phone is self-evident, but in the end how important? When you see the phone circles are guessing and rumored and there are XXX phones will be the first episode Xiaolong processing Device, and then aroused a stir on the Internet, perhaps you can understand for today's smart phones, the processor is not just a component, or even become a symbol from a certain point. And for the chip, it all depends on Product power to speak.If the product power point of view, whether it is the unexpected LPP process, Snapdragon 8 Series highest 2.8GHz clock speed, or the new generation of DyanmIQ architecture, a substantial increase in CPU performance is Snapdragon 845 We are most impressed, and bring the challenge of power consumption is our more curious part of the experience of a year Snapdragon 835 brings a good experience, we have the Snapdragon 845 also has a good confidence.