During the first day of the Snapdragon Tech Summit Digital, Qualcomm Incorporated President, Cristiano Amon took the virtual stage with global industry leaders to highlight the critical role Qualcomm Snapdragon 8-Series mobile platforms have played to drive experiences forward for the next generation of devices. Qualcomm Technologies' innovation in the premium tier, coupled with the evolution of 5G, is accelerating and continuing to redefine immersive consumer experiences. The proliferation of these premium tier experiences has and will continue to enrich the lives of billions of smartphone users around the world.

"Creating premium experiences takes a relentless focus on innovation. It takes long term commitment, even in the face of immense uncertainty," said Cristiano Amon, president, Qualcomm Incorporated. "It takes an organization that's focused on tomorrow, to continue to deliver the technologies that redefine premium experiences."

During its Q3 earnings call, Samsung Electronics has provided everyone with an update on its foundry and node production development. In the past year or so, Samsung's foundry has been a producer of a 7 nm LPP (Low Power Performance) node as its smallest node. That is now changed as Samsung has started the production of the 5 nm LPE (Low Power Early) semiconductor manufacturing node. In the past, we have reported that the company struggled with yields of its 5 nm process, however, that seems to be ironed out and now the node is in full production. To contribute to the statement that the new node is doing well, we also recently reported that Samsung will be the sole manufacturer of Qualcomm Snapdragon 875 5G SoC.

The new 5 nm semiconductor node is a marginal improvement over the past 7 nm node. It features a 10% performance improvement that is taking the same power and chip complexity or a 20% power reduction of the same processor clocks and design. When it comes to density, the company advertises the node with x1.33 times increase in transistor density compared to the previous node. The 5LPE node is manufactured using the Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) methodology and its FinFET transistors feature new characteristics like Smart Difusion Break isolation, flexible contact placement, and single-fin devices for low power applications. The node is design-rule compatible with the previous 7 nm LPP node, so the existing IP can be used and manufactured on this new process. That means that this is not a brand new process but rather an enhancement. First products are set to arrive with the next generation of smartphone SoCs, like the aforementioned Qualcomm Snapdragon 875.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced a new 5G mobile platform in the 7-series, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G 5G Mobile Platform, which enables truly global 5G with brilliant HDR gaming and amazing on-device AI. To date, there have been more than 275 designs announced or in development based on Snapdragon 7-series mobile platforms, including 140 5G designs.

"We continue to see great traction with our high-tier Snapdragon 7-series 5G mobile platforms," said Kedar Kondap, vice president of product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "As we continue to build out this relatively new tier of our mobile roadmap, we're always looking for ways to support the growing needs of our OEM customers. Snapdragon 750G delivers a selection of premium mobile features to an even wider audience."

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, is powering better-than-ever virtual reality (VR) gameplay and experiences with the launch of Oculus Quest 2, the first-to-launch VR device powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Platform. Oculus Quest 2 is a culmination of years of collaboration between Qualcomm Technologies and Facebook to create the most advanced and immersive gaming VR experiences for consumers to-date.

Purpose-built for extended reality (XR), the Snapdragon XR2 Platform unlocks staggering improvements including twice the CPU and GPU performance compared to its predecessor which powers the original Oculus Quest headset. The Snapdragon XR2 Platform delivers significant performance enhancements in Oculus Quest 2 including:

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, announced the Qualcomm Cloud AI 100, a high-performance AI inference accelerator, is shipping to select worldwide customers. Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 uses advanced signal processing and cutting-edge power efficiency to support AI solutions for multiple environments including the datacenter, cloud edge, edge appliance, and 5G infrastructure. The newly announced Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 Edge Development Kit is engineered to accelerate adoption of edge applications by offering a complete system solution for AI processing up to 24 simultaneous 1080p video streams along with 5G connectivity.

"Qualcomm Technologies is well positioned to support complete edge-to-cloud high performance AI solutions that lead the industry in performance per watt," said Keith Kressin, senior vice president and general manager, computing and edge cloud, Qualcomm Technologies. "Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 is now shipping to select worldwide customers and we look forward to seeing commercial products launch in the first half of 2021."

Rumors fresh of South Korean shores claim that Samsung has snagged a position as sole provider for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 875 SoC on its 5 nm EUV manufacturing process. The reason for this, according to a supposed industry insider, boiled down to money (as it almost always does): Samsung simply offered lower pricing for chips manufactured under its 5 nm EUV process than TSMC did. The deal has been claimed to be worth some $840M. This makes sense, as Samsung has a considerable product portfolio - including lucrative memory fabrication - from which it can pool resources so as to lower pricing for new manufacturing technologies, whereas TSMC can only count on revenues it brings in from contracted silicon manufacturing deals.

Samsung's 5 nm EUV will still offer the now tried-and-true FinFet transistor design - next-generation GAAFET (gate all-around FET) are reserved for the companies' 3 nm efforts. This piece of news directly contradicts Digitimes' earlier reporting on Qualcomm leaving Samsung as a foundry partner due to lower than adequate yields for Samsung's 5 nm EUV. With Samsung already manufacturing NVIDIA's Ampere on its 8 nm node, and now with a confirmed high-volume client with Qualcomm, this likely means more available capacity for other TSMC clients - of which we could mention AMD and Apple.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today announced at Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) Berlin the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G compute platform, the company's most advanced and efficient compute platform. Users will benefit from superior performance and multi-day battery life*, 5G connectivity, enterprise-grade security and AI acceleration, as well as advanced camera and audio technology. These features will enable and support the digital transformation and mobility needs for remote productivity and learning experiences. The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 is designed to enable industry leading 5G PC experiences and build on the innovative first-generation Snapdragon 8cx 5G compute platform, which powered the World's First 5G PC.

"Working remotely is the new reality, and more businesses are looking to quickly and securely connect their employee base, accelerating the need for always on, always connected PCs that are thin, light and truly mobile, equipped with blazing fast 5G cellular and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, and coupled with multi-day battery-life to boost productivity," said Miguel Nunes, Senior Director, Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "We are excited to expand our customer reach with Acer, to continue bringing the best of the Smartphone to the PC. Together, we will deliver cutting-edge devices and experiences to consumers and businesses, enabling them to connect, create and collaborate anytime from virtually anywhere."

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced the Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G Mobile Platform, a follow-on to the Snapdragon 730G. Snapdragon 732G is designed to deliver immersive gameplay backed by smarter, faster artificial intelligence (AI) and accelerated performance, including an upgraded GPU and CPU compared to the previous generation.

"Snapdragon 732G will deliver a powerful gaming experience, sophisticated on-device AI, and superior performance," said Kedar Kondap, vice president of product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "We're excited to work with POCO on the new POCO smartphone powered by the enhanced Snapdragon 732G globally."

Vulnerabilities in Qualcomm's DSP (Digital Signal Processor) present in the company's Snapdragon SoCs may render more than a billion Android phones susceptible to hacking. According to research reported this week by security firm Check Point, they've found more than 400 vulnerabilities in Snapdragon's DSP, which may allow attackers to monitor locations, listen to nearby audio in real time, and exfiltrate locally-stored photos and videos - besides being able to render the phone completely unresponsive.

The vulnerabilities (CVE-2020-11201, CVE-2020-11202, CVE-2020-11206, CVE-2020-11207, CVE-2020-11208 and CVE-2020-11209) can be exploited simply via a video download or any other content that's rendered by the chip that passes through its DSP. Targets can also be attacked by installing malicious apps that require no permissions at all. Qualcomm has already tackled the issue by stating they have worked to validate the issue, and have already issued mitigations to OEMs, which should be made available via software updates in the future. In the meantime, the company has said they have no evidence any of these flaws is being currently exploited, and advise all Snapdragon platform users to only install apps via trusted locations such as the Play Store.

A performance review of the Intel Core i5-L16G7 "Lakefield" Hybrid processor (powering a Samsung Galaxy S notebook) was recently published by Golem.de, which provides an in-depth look at Intel's ambitious new processor design that sets in motion the two new philosophies Intel will build its future processors on - packaging modularity provided by innovative new chip packaging technologies such as Foveros; and Hybrid processing, where there are two sets of CPU cores with vastly different microarchitectures and significantly different performance/Watt curves that let the processor respond to different kinds of workloads while keeping power-draw low. This concept was commercially proliferated first by Arm, with its big.LITTLE topology that took to the market around 2013. The "Lakefield" i5-L16G7 combines a high-performance "Sunny Cove" CPU core with four smaller "Tremont" cores, and Gen11 iGPU.

The Golem.de report reveals that Windows 10 thread scheduler is aware of the hybrid multi-core topology of "Lakefield," and that it is able to classify workloads at a very advanced level so the right kind of core is in use at any given time. The "Sunny Cove" core is called upon when interactive vast serial processing loads are in demand. This could even be something like launching applications, new tabs in a multi-process web-browser, or less-parallelized media encoding. The four "Tremont" cores keep the machine "cruising," handling much of the operational workload of an application, and is also better tuned to cope with highly parallelized workloads. This is similar to a hybrid automobile, where the combustion engine provides tractive effort from 0 kph, while the electric motor sustains a cruising speed.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. unveiled the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus 5G Mobile Platform, a follow-on to the flagship Snapdragon 865 that has powered more than 140 devices (announced or in development) - the most individual premium-tier designs powered by a single mobile platform this year. The new Snapdragon 865 Plus is designed to deliver increased performance across the board for superior gameplay and insanely fast Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite Gaming experiences, truly global 5G, and ultra-intuitive AI.

"As we work to scale 5G, we continue to invest in our premium tier, 8-series mobile platforms, to push the envelope in terms of performance and power efficiency and deliver the next generation of camera, AI and gaming experiences," said Alex Katouzian, senior vice president and general manager, mobile, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "Building upon the success of Snapdragon 865, the new Snapdragon 865 Plus will deliver enhanced performance for the next wave of flagship smartphones."

Here at HTC Vive, we have long partnered with Qualcomm Technologies to bring amazing immersive mobile experiences to consumers and businesses. Throughout our history of making smartphones at HTC to creating VR headsets like Focus Plus, we leverage the latest and greatest processing power from Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile platform. Today we're furthering our commitment through an agreement to pre-integrate and optimize Vive's WAVE development platform for devices powered by Snapdragon including the Snapdragon 855, Snapdragon 865, Snapdragon XR1, and Snapdragon XR2 Platforms.

Starting now, the Vive Wave runtime will be made available to all Snapdragon customers on these chipsets. In addition, HTC engineers will offer testing and support for new deployments of the Wave platform as part of the agreement.

Lenovo is blazing a path for mass adoption of ultra-fast, low-latency laptop connectivity through a series of mobile network operator partnerships committed to making 5G computing a reality for consumers around the world. On the heels of the earlier unveiling of the Lenovo Yoga 5G (known as Lenovo Flex 5G in the US)—the world's first 5G PC in market—Lenovo has formed strategic partnerships with leading 5G service providers around the world: Verizon, EE, Sunrise and CMCC. Powered by the Qualcomm ️ Snapdragon 8cx 5G compute platform, the Yoga 5G laptop delivers high-speed 5G network connectivity (through a 5G service provider) that's up to 10 times faster than 4G.

"Lenovo introduced the world's first 5G laptop in market to equip the mobile generation with smarter technology for always-on connectivity and computing. The hardware is just the first step," says Johnson Jia, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Consumer Business Segment in Lenovo's Intelligent Devices Group. "With our strategic partnerships with global 5G network carriers, consumers will now be able to access easier, faster and more secure connectivity seamlessly from virtually anywhere. As 5G computing holds the power to transform user experiences, we believe it can ultimately disrupt the PC industry for the better."

Pico Interactive, a global tech company that develops innovative virtual reality (VR) and enterprise solutions, today announces the availability of its highly anticipated headsets from the Pico Neo line - the Neo 2 and Neo 2 Eye, both of which deliver key VR solutions to the enterprise.

Both models were built with business in mind, featuring best-in-class 4K resolution, enterprise functionality, six degrees of freedom (6DoF) and spatial stereo speakers. The headsets feature the comfort and hygienic design of an all-PU facial interface, unique counterbalanced design for easy and extended wear, and have plenty of room for prescription glasses. Using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform with Boundless XR, the Neo 2 allows content streaming from a VR Ready PC and select existing PC VR platforms.

XRSPACE, the company pioneering the next generation of social reality, has today announced the launch of the world's first social VR platform designed for mass market users, combined with the first 5G mobile VR headset, delivering on the promise of a true social VR experience for all.

XRSPACE aims to create the social reality of the future - a world where people can interact both physically and virtually in a way that is contextual, familiar, immersive, interactive and personal. At a time when face-to-face interaction is restricted due to social distancing measures, XRSPACE is aiming to bring people together in a virtual world that is powered by cutting edge XR, AI, and computer vision technology, creating a new experience through 5G which is meaningful, anytime, anywhere.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, today at Augmented World Expo (AWE), celebrates the milestone of partnering with global operators, smartphone OEMs and XR viewer manufacturers to deliver XR viewers to consumers and enterprises within the next year. Since Qualcomm Technologies' device category introduction of XR viewers tethered to 5G smartphones, fifteen global operators including China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, EE, KDDI, KT, LG Uplus, NTT DOCOMO, Orange, SK Telecom, SoftBank, Telefonica, Verizon and Vodafone have shared plans to sample and commercialize XR viewers to provide immersive, never-before-experiences over 5G.

Lightweight, head-worn devices that connect to a smartphone powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 or 865 Mobile Platforms, XR viewers are glasses tethered to a 5G-enabled smartphone via USB-C cable. XR viewers unlock a new generation of immersive experiences using 5G-enabled smartphones that provide high bandwidth and low latency which is essential for high-quality XR. Consumers' favorite smartphone applications can become augmented reality (AR) experiences in front of their eyes or workplace meetings can be revolutionized through holographic telepresence with virtual collaboration platforms, as XR and 5G come together to transform how the world connects, communicates and consumes content.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced the Qualcomm Snapdragon 768G Mobile Platform, a follow-on to the Snapdragon 765G. Snapdragon 768G is designed to bring next-level performance that enables smart, immersive gaming experiences with the integration of truly global 5G, sophisticated on-device AI and select Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite Gaming features.

"We are uniquely positioned to accelerate 5G commercialization at scale and Snapdragon 768G is an example of how we're continuing to deliver solutions to address the needs of our OEM customers," said Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "Our expanding portfolio has the potential to make 5G accessible to billions of smartphone users around the world."

Intel has been experimenting with a concept of mixing various types of cores in a single package with a design called Lakefield. With this processor, you would get a package of relatively small dimensions that are 12-by-12-by-1 millimeters withing very low TDP. Thanks to the Twitter user InstLatX64 (@InstLatX64) we have some GeekBench 5 results of the new Lakefield chip. The CPU in question is the Core i5-L15G7, a 5 core CPU without HyperThreading. The 5C/5T would be a weird configuration if only Lakefield wasn't meant for such configs. There are one "big" Sunny Cove core and four "small" Tremont cores built on the 10 nm manufacturing process. This is the so-called compute die, where only the CPU cores are present. The base dies containing other stuff like I/O controllers and PHYs, memory etc. is made on a low-cost node like 22 nm, where performance isn't the primary target. The whole chip is targeting the 5-7 W TDP range.

In the GeekBench 5 result we got, the Core i5-L15G7 is a processor that has a base frequency of 1.4 GHz, while in the test it reached as high as 2.95 GHz speeds. This is presumably for the big Sunny Cove cores, as Tremont cores are supposed to be slower. The cache configuration reportedly puts 1.5 MB of L2$ and 4 MB of L3$ for the CPUs. If we take a look at performance numbers, the chip scores 725 points in single-core tests, while the multi-core result is 1566 points. We don't know what is the targeted market and what it competes with, however, if compared to some offerings from Snapdragon, like the Snapdragon 835, it offers double the single-threaded performance with a similar multi-core score. If this is meant to compete with the more powerful Snapdragon offerings like the 8cx model, comparing the two results in Intel's fail. While the two have similar single-core performance, the Snapdragon 8cx leads by as much as 76.9% in a multi-core scenario, giving this chip a heavy blow.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today announced the Snapdragon X60 5G Modem-RF System, its third-generation 5G modem-to-antenna solution (the Snapdragon X60). Snapdragon X60 features the world's first 5-nanometer 5G baseband and is the world's first 5G Modem-RF System to support spectrum aggregation across all key 5G bands and combinations, including mmWave and sub-6 using frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD), providing ultimate operator flexibility to uplift 5G performance utilizing fragmented spectrum assets. This 5G modem-to-antenna solution is designed to enhance the performance and capacity for operators worldwide while increasing average 5G speeds in mobile devices. Snapdragon X60 is engineered to accelerate network transition to 5G standalone mode through support for any key spectrum band, mode or combination, along with 5G Voice-over-NR (VoNR) capabilities.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, announces a broad Qualcomm Snapdragon Compute platform portfolio with long battery life, cellular connectivity, and AI accelerated performance to enable fanless, thin and light designs for modern computing. Built with mobility in mind, the portfolio accommodates the evolving needs of mobile consumers. The Snapdragon 7c and 8c now join the previously announced Snapdragon 8cx, delivering lightning fast cellular connectivity to premium, mainstream, and entry-level notebook PCs. The portfolio is available in various price points allowing partners to design always on, always connected PCs for a wide array of consumers. In addition, the Snapdragon 8cx enterprise compute platform brings connected security software and secured-core PC support for modern enterprises looking to bring mobility to their workers.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, introduced the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 5G Mobile Platform, which combines the world's most advanced 5G Modem-RF System with the world's most advanced mobile platform designed to deliver the unmatched connectivity and performance required for the next generation of flagship devices.

The platform's best-in-class Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System provides peak speeds of up to 7.5 Gbps, surpassing most wired connections and transforming the mobile experience. The leading 5th generation Qualcomm AI Engine and new Qualcomm Sensing Hub provides more intelligence and personalization than ever before. Snapdragon 865 includes the blazing fast Qualcomm Spectra 480 Image Signal Processor (ISP), which brings new features to mobile photography and videography thanks to gigapixel speeds - up to 2 gigapixels per second. Gamers can use Snapdragon to compete at the highest levels with an array of brand-new Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite Gaming features for desktop-quality gaming and ultra-realistic graphics. Our next generation Qualcomm Kryo 585 CPU delivers up to 25% performance improvement, and the new Qualcomm Adreno 650 GPU offers up to 25% overall performance boost compared to the previous generations, ensuring superior processing power for the next generation of flagship devices. The Snapdragon 865 empowers you to game, capture, cross-task and connect like never before.

According to the sources close to Neowin, Microsoft is expected to launch x86-64 (or x64 in short) emulation support for Windows on ARM (WoA) devices. Expected to arrive in Windows 10 21H1, or around 2020 for all the Windows Insiders, the new feature will enable a vast majority of apps made for Windows OS, currently built for x64 architecture, to run on ARM ISA and all Windows on ARM computers.

So far, only 32-bit x86 applications were able to be emulated, however, if these rumors are to be believed, many users of WoA devices should get a chance to run all of their favorite 64-bit software that was previously unavailable. The launch of this feature will boost the adoption of the WoA ecosystem with benefits reaching all existing laptop models, including Microsoft's newly launched Surface Pro X laptop that utilizes an ARM-based chip called SQ1 (customized Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx processor).

According to the information obtained by Statesman, Samsung Electronics is shutting down its custom CPU design group within the company. Known for the designs of mobile SoCs like Exynos 9110, 9810 and 9820 just to name a few, it seems that there will be no more future developments of custom Exynos SoC for Samsung's mobile devices. Instead of designing its own cores, Samsung is now going to use ARM's reference A7x series of CPUs based on ARM v8 instruction set, with A76 or A77 being chosen as likely candidates for the high-performance workloads.

So far it is still unknown what will be inside new processors like the upcoming Exynos 9830 SoC, meant to power the next generation of mobile devices. But if things are like Samsung states, there should be reference ARM cores like A77 inside the new chip. Already announced chips like Exynos 990 are supposed to use a custom CPU core, while all future revisions of any new Exynos SoC will license a design IP from ARM. This decision is supposedly a by-product of being unable to compete with offers from Qualcomm, which offers faster "Snapdragon" SoCs. Samsung already uses the Snapdragon SoCs in its phones for the US and Chinese markets, while the rest of the world is getting an Exynos equivalent with the purchase of the same mobile device.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today introduced Galaxy Book S, a game-changing mobile computing device built for high-performing users who don't want to be weighed down by excessive size and features of traditional laptops. Built for the new achievers - the innovators, the go-getters, those who do things differently to push themselves forward - Galaxy Book S empowers the next generation of mobile moguls.

With Galaxy Book S, Samsung ushers in a new era of mobile computing with a device that harnesses the mobility and connectivity of a smartphone and the powerful productivity of a PC. Developed in collaboration with leading technology companies, Galaxy Book S takes Samsung's position as a mobile leader and unites it with the best-in-class workforce platform powered by Microsoft and industry-leading mobile performance from Qualcomm. This new category device offers Gigabit LTE connectivity, instant-on capabilities and a premium design, powered by Windows 10 and the cutting-edge Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx compute platform. With Galaxy Book S, experience the freedom of a new type of mobile device that lets you work anywhere and everywhere, without tethering you to your desk or couch.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, announced in conjunction with Lenovo the world's first 5G PC2 today at its Computex Press Conference. Project Limitless encompasses a strong technology collaboration between Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. a leader in 5G connectivity, and Lenovo, the leader in PCs, to bring innovation to the always on, always connected PC ecosystem. Project Limitless is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx 5G compute platform and is the world's first 7nm platform purpose-built for PCs that offers 5G connectivity.

The new platform is running on Windows 10 for ARM. It promises multi-day battery life and 7GBps transfer speeds with a Snapdragon x55 5G modem.Image Source: Tom's Hardware