Qualcomm's new Snapdragon platforms enable HD, 3D on phones

19th May 2011
Qualcomm's new Snapdragon platforms enable HD, 3D on phones
Qualcomm's India Country Manager and Vice President for Business Development, Dr Sandeep Sibal, briefing the media in Bangalore about Snapdragon, May 18 2011

Mobile technology leader Qualcomm has unveiled new iterations to its Snapdragon architecture which offer up to four independent processing cores, working at 2.5 GHz per core, making them the world’s first mobile solutions to offer this near PC functionality. Codenamed “Krait”, new architecture includes under its belt, the Adreno graphics processor with its own to four 3D cores, and integrated multi-mode LTE modem. The latest Snapdragon chipsets will include the single-core MSM8930, the dual-core MSM8960 and the quad-core APQ8064. All chipsets will integrate a combo of connectivity solutions — WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and FM — and include support for near field communication (NFC), as well as stereoscopic 3D (S3D) video and photo capture and playback.

While these chipsets were first unveiled at the Mobile Wolrd Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, Qualcomm has now added another ‘astra’ or weapon to its quiver -- an Augmented Reality (AR) Platform for Android smartphones. This will enable developers to build high-performance, interactive 3D experiences on real world images, such as those used in print media (books, magazines, brochures, tickets, signs) and on product packaging, explained Sandeep Sibal, Qualcomm’s India Country Manager and Vice President for Business Development, at a media round table on May 18 in Bangalore.
There are 100 plus Snapdragon-based commercial devices in the market today. Over 20 manufactures are currently developing 150+ Snapdragon-based devices – more than 30 of which are for the burgeoning Tablet market, Dr Sibal added. Snapdragon’s solution fuel 6 out of 10 android devices , even as they are enabled for all other popular mobile operating environments including HPWebOS and Windows Phone. In 2011 alone the Snapdragon platform appeared under the hood of phone solutions like the Acer Liquid Metal, Acer Iconia Smart, Dell Venue Pro, Sony Ericsson Xperia, HTC Desire S as well as ‘desi’ models like Olive Smart and Spice MI.
Qualcomm’s mobile platforms are cellular technology agnostic – GSM or CDMA – and offer a roadmap from 3G HSPA to EVDO and 4G LTE. The latest Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform will help developers craft solutions for HD and HTML5-based video on phones including HD (Flash as well as HTML5) video directly from the browser, rather than kicking it to the media player on the device ( Pl see for a few days the video in our Tech Video slot on the home page where Sy Choudhury, Qualcomm’s Director for Product Development illustrates the distinction) Technote: What is snapdragon?
The Snapdragon family of mobile processors is a highly integrated, mobile optimized system on a chip incorporat¬ing Qualcomm’s advanced technologies including high per¬formance central processing units (CPU), graphics process¬ing units (GPU) and modems, industry leading multimedia subsystems including audio, video and camera capabilities, and highly accurate GPS engines. Qualcomm’s CPU cores are based on the ARM v.7 instruction set and are designed from the ground up to deliver industry leading levels of com¬pute performance at ultra low power, allowing manufac¬turers to design slim and powerful devices that last longer between charges
For more snapdragon info: http://www.qualcomm.com/snapdragon  
May 19 2011