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Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 SoC Unveiled, Brings Enhanced Gaming, Camera, AI Capabilities to Mid Range Smartphones

Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 SoC Unveiled, Brings Enhanced Gaming, Camera, AI Capabilities to Mid-Range Smartphones

By Jagmeet Singh | Updated: 23 October 2018 06:30 IST

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 675 SoC comes as an upgrade over the Snapdragon 670 SoC

Highlights

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 675 SoC has an octa-core Kryo 675 CPU
The SoC is based on 11nm LPP process
Qualcomm has also announced the new record of its Quick Charge tech

Expanding its mid-range mobile system-on-chip (SoC) family, Qualcomm has unveiled the Snapdragon 675 Mobile Platform. The all-new Snapdragon 675 comes as an upgrade over the Snapdragon 670 SoC that that was launched in August as the successor to last year's Snapdragon 660. The chipmaker has used 11nm LPP process technology, an octa-core Kryo 460 CPU, and Adreno 612 GPU. There are three key areas that the Snapdragon 675 SoC covers, Qualcomm claims, namely gaming, photography, and artificial intelligence (AI). The new chip also supports Qualcomm's Quick Charge 4+ technology that debuted last year to deliver a faster charging experience over previous Quick Charge versions. The San Diego-based company has separately revealed that its Quick Charge technology now powers more than 1,000 mobile devices, accessors, and controls worldwide. Apart from smartphones, the ecosystem is available on various VR headsets, wireless speakers, cameras, and power banks.

To deliver next-level gaming experiences to the Snapdragon 600 tier, the Snapdragon 675 SoC uses Adreno 612 GPU that supports OpenGL ES 3.2, Open CL 2.0, Vulkan, and DirectX 12. There is also 4K video playback support as well as DisplayPort over USB Type-C compatibility. Further, the new Snapdragon SoC has Qualcomm's Aqstic audio codec and smart speaker amplifier, native DSD support, and aptX audio playback along with support for aptX Classic and HD to uplift audio in your games. The gaming enhancements on the latest chip are touted to reduce "janks" over 90 percent compared to the performance delivered through the same hardware without any enhancements. For online games, the chip also has Snapdragon X12 LTE modem with support for up to 600Mbps LTE connectivity. There is also tri-band, Wi-Fi 802.11ac 2x2 with MU-MIMO. Similarly, the chip supports direct audio broadcast to multiple devices and has ultra-low power wireless headphones support through Bluetooth v5.0 and proprietary enhancements, including Qualcomm TrueWireless Stereo technology.

Qualcomm claims that compared to the Snapdragon 670, the Snapdragon 675 SoC offers 30 percent faster game launch time. Plus, the chip provides 35 percent faster Web browsing and 20 percent faster music launch over the previous Snapdragon SoC.

On the imaging front, the Snapdragon 675 has Qualcomm Spectra 250L ISP for 14-bit image signal processing along with support for up to 48-megapixel snapshots, single 25-megapixel at 30fps with Zero Shutter Lag (ZSL) and dual 16-megapixel cameras at 30fps and ZSL. The chip also supports multi-frame noise reduction with accelerated image stabilisation and hybrid autofocus with support for dual accelerated image stabilisation. For videos, the Snapdragon SoC has Ultra-HD (4K at 30fps) video recording support with Motion Compensated Temporal Filtering and HD (720p) video recording at 480fps.

Mobile devices featuring the Snapdragon 675 can support up to three rear camera sensors along with 5x optical zoom. Also, there are built-in enhancements to support Portrait Mode and Bokeh effect as well as enable HDR to reduce noise and enhance colours. The frontal sensors on a hardware featuring the Snapdragon 675, on the other hand, can support 3D Face Unlock features. Qualcomm claims that the new chip also enables mobile payment security and works with technologies such as Megvii (Face++), NetEase, SenseTime, Thundersoft, and Trio.AI.

The Snapdragon 675 SoC has a Kryo 460 CPU that comes as an octa-core processing unit with two cores of Cortex-A76 and six cores of Cortex-A55. Qualcomm has also provided a Hexagon 685 DSP with third-generation vector extensions and All-Ways Aware Sensor Hub. Additionally, there is support for Qualcomm Neural Processing Engine SDK and framework compatibility with Caffe, Caffe2, TensorFlow, and TensorFlow Lite to deliver a wide range of AI experiences. The chip also has support for voice activation with machine learning algorithms and the third-generation Qualcomm AI Engine. The new engine is touted to deliver up to 50 percent overall improvements in AI applications over its predecessor. The presence of Qualcomm Aqstic Voice UI on the Snapdragon 675 also makes it capable of working with multiple voice assistants - without consuming a large amount of power.

Further, the Snapdragon 675 SoC supports up to full-HD+ display panels, 8GB 1866MHz LPDDR4x RAM, GPS, Glonass, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS, and SBAS, as well as low-power geofencing and tracking and sensor-assisted navigation. There is Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ technology that is touted to charge a smartphone battery from zero to 50 percent in just 15 minutes. Qualcomm affirms its internal testing has found that the new chip can enhance devices to deliver over 11 hours of video playback, 11 hours of video streaming, three hours of 4K video recording, seven hours of gaming, or up to five days of music playback on a single charge.

The Snapdragon 675 is already available to manufacturers, though devices sporting the new SoC are expected to debut in the first half of 2019.

"Packed with advanced gaming abilities, remarkable camera performance, and a multi-core AI Engine, Snapdragon 675 based smartphones will bring new experiences to consumers globally," said Kedar Kondap, Vice President of Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, in a press statement while announcing the new SoC.

Alongside unveiling the Snapdragon 675 SoC, Qualcomm has announced that its Quick Charge technology is now powering over 1,000 mobile devices, including 200 compatible smartphones, 700 accessories, and 100 controllers. The latest in the Quick Charge family is the Quick Charge 4+ technology that has improved Dual Charge, intelligent thermal balancing, and various layers of advanced safety features. The fresh technology is claimed to be 30 percent more efficient than Quick Charge 4. It comes with a new battery sensing technology that directly measures the voltage of the battery cell and let the system provide an accurate view of the battery's current state to reduce charge times. Plus, there is support for USB Power Delivery (USB PD) as well as USB Type-C interfaces.

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