Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 700 series woos mid-tier smartphone segment with AI

SPAIN: Qualcomm has introduced the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 700 Mobile Platform Series, designed to exceed what is expected from today’s high-tier mobile experiences, with features and performance previously only available in the premium Snapdragon 800 Mobile Platform Series.

Advances to be expected in the 700 Series include on-device AI supported by the Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine, and improvements to camera, device performance and power, supported by the heterogeneous compute power of premium features.

“The Snapdragon 700 Mobile Platform Series will bring premium tier technologies and features into more affordable devices, something our global OEM customers and consumers are demanding,” said Alex Katouzian, senior vice president and general manager, mobile, Qualcomm Technologies. “From our cutting-edge Qualcomm AI Engine to superior camera, device performance and power, the Snapdragon 700 Series is optimized to support the experiences consumers have come to expect from the most advanced mobile devices at a lower price point.”

Snapdragon 700 Series products will come with the multi-core Qualcomm AI Engine delivering up to 2x improvements for on-device AI applications compared to the Snapdragon 660 Mobile Platform. Through heterogeneous computing, the new architectures of the 700 Series – the Hexagon Vector Processor, Adreno Visual Processing subsystem, and Kryo CPU – work cooperatively to effortlessly capture and share videos, learn voice and speech and make your device last on a single charge without changing applications or settings.

The Snapdragon 700 Series will debut new architectures across the mobile platform, including Qualcomm Spectra ISP, Kryo CPU and Adreno Visual Processing subsystem, which will offer up to 30% improvements in power efficiency, and better performance and battery life across numerous applications compared to the Snapdragon 660 Mobile Platform. 700 Series products will also benefit from Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ technology, engineered to get up to 50% charge in only 15 minutes, said the company.

The Snapdragon 700 Tier will feature an advanced suite of wireless technologies with ultra-fast LTE, carrier Wi-Fi features, as well as enhanced Bluetooth 5.

Commercial samples of the first Snapdragon 700 Series Mobile Platforms are anticipated to ship to customers 1H 2018.

Qualcomm also announced the Snapdragon 5G Module Solutions to lower the 5G entry barrier for the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). By aggregating the most fundamental components of 5G into simple modules, Qualcomm Technologies aims to simplify end device designs, lowers total cost of ownership and support faster time to commercialization to ultimately accelerate new OEM entrants’ ability to adopt 5G in their systems.