MWC: Qualcomm debuts single, dual and quad core Snapdragon chips

BY JUNE Qualcomm will sample its 28nm scale Krait architecture based dual core MSM8960 processor and about a year later, in early 2012, its quad core APQ8064 chip.

Krait is the company's latest architecture and Qualcomm is promising up to 2.5Ghz per Krait core, which it says will give a 150 per cent performance improvement with 65 per cent less power compared to its current ARM-based processors.

All of the Krait chipsets will support WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, FM, near field communication and 3D video and photography and will come with new versions of the firm's Adreno graphical processing unit.

The MSM8060 will have an integrated multi-mode 3G/LTE modem for multitasking smartphones and tablets and its cores will be asynchronous. This, Qualcomm says, will allow for independent control for better efficiency. With dual channel memory, the GPU it will use is the Adreno 225.

Qualcomm says its quad core APQ8064 chip is designed to "meet the requirements of the next generation of computing and entertainment devices". Its four cores will also be asynchronous and it will have the Adreno A320 quad-core GPU.

It further says the A320 GPU will have 15X the performance of the original Adreno GPU and will allow "console quality gaming", suggesting that it could also appear in future console devices.

Qualcomm also has a single core chipset, the MSM8930, which has the Adreno 305 GPU, but for some reason no sampling date is given for it and the chip firm wasn't available for comment. µ