by John Merson (Admin)
12. November 2011 14:29
The house that Qualcomm has built seems to continue to gain more ground in the mobile processing world with every product they release. Of course I am talking about the Snapdragon chipset. My biggest criticism to the Windows 7 Phone when it launched was in the tune of hardware. Great innovation of software and user experience package however the hardware was greatly lacking. I was very unimpressed at the launch lineup of phones. This is no longer the case for the new lineup of Windows 7 Phones.
Windows 7 Phone delivers the software innovation while Qualcomm delivers innovation in the hardware realm. This team of hardware and software promises to be the exceptional level of integration between hardware, software, and services. Yeah that was so the sales and marketing version of it but the tech looks very promising.
The generation of the Snapdragon chipset platform (S2) will find its way into every new Windows 7 Phone. This chipset has much to boast about and is self-proclaiming it as a “system on a chip that delivers on unprecedented combination of processing performance and optimized power consumption.” with directly built-in support for Power Management, Multimedia, Radio Frequencies (RF), Software/ High Level Operating System (HLOS), Memory, Connectivity, CPU, GPU, GPS, MODEM, and Digital Signal Processors (DSP). Quite impressive feats from this dual-core processor which proudly represents superior battery and power management.
The integrated Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is by far the item I am most interested in. Like all Snapdragon processors this one has the integrated Adreno Graphics Processor Unit. This chipset will ship with the Adreno 205 GPU chip which boasts impressive 3D graphic numbers and support.
I would hope to see the S3 chipsets in future phones (Q3 and Q4 of 2012) which boasts the Adreno 220 GPU. It also boasts an 88 million triangles per second benchmark. Think about that for a second... This Smartphone GPU can process 147% more triangles then the Wii can, making it by far more powerful than the Wii (in both graphic processing power and CPU power).
What is even more exciting is the next generation of chipsets for Snapdragon. The next generation which will be labeled as the S4 (the chipsets in the Windows 7 Phones initially will be the S2 and we all want the phone to see the S3 chipsets used by the end of 2012). The S4 will be quite impressive according to this whitepaper by Qualcomm. The S4 chipset already has a huge focus on its Adreno 225 and 320 GPU which fully supports DirectX 9.3 for Windows 8. How much you want to bet future lines of Window 7/8 Phones will continue to use Snapdragon chipsets?
The future looks bright.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Subscribe