Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 Mobile Platform to Arrive in October With Custom Oryon CPU

Qualcomm, the chipmaker whose SoCs power nearly a third of all smartphones globally, is working on its next generation flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. The company has now provided an update on the SoC, that will likely power upcoming high-end Android phones. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip will launch later this year in October at the Snapdragon Summit. This lines up with Qualcomm's usual release cycle for its flagship mobile platform. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which powers high-end Android smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and OnePlus 12, launched in October 2023 at the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii.

In a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) Wednesday on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Qualcomm's Chief Marketing Officer Don McGuire confirmed the October 2024 launch timeline for the chipset.

The executive also reiterated that Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will feature Qualcomm's custom Oryon CPU, first announced at the Snapdragon Summit in 2022. “Snapdragon Summit is coming up in October,” MGuire said “...there's going to be some really cool stuff as our mobile platforms are reinvented with our Oryon CPU.” The executive said that the company would be bringing its “supercharged” Oryon CPU along with an updated Neural Processing Unit (NPU). “That's going to be a killer combo in our Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 announcement, which I'm sure you guys can't wait to hear about,” he said. “Coming in October 2024.”

While details are sparse on Qualcomm's next flagship mobile platform, Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is expected to be designed using TSMC's 3nm fabrication process, which Apple's A17 Pro chipsets are based on. It will feature the company's Oryon CPU, unveiled in 2022 for Snapdragon platforms. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite platform for AI PCs, announced at last year's Snapdragon Summit, also utilises Oryon cores.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is expected to power upcoming flagship Android phones like Samsung Galaxy S25, Xiaomi 15 series, and Asus Zenfone 11. Qualcomm's current top-end mobile platform, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, launched last year in October. The chipset powers phones like the Galaxy S24 Ultra and OnePlus 12.

Qualcomm also unveiled a range of new generative AI features for Android smartphones at the MWC 2024 this week and introduced a Qualcomm AI Hub that offers over 75 optimised AI models for its platforms.

The chipmaker occupies a 28 percent share in the global smartphone chipsets market as of the third quarter of 2023, behind only MediaTek, according to Counterpoint Research.