Qualcomm Snapdragon

   Qualcomm Snapdragon

Snapdragon is a suite of system on a chip (SoC) semiconductor products designed and marketed by Qualcomm for mobile devices. The Snapdragon central processing unit (CPU) uses the ARM RISC instruction set, and a single SoC may include multiple CPU cores, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a wireless modem, and other software and hardware to support a smartphone's global positioning system (GPS), camera, gesture recognition and video. Snapdragon semiconductors are embedded in devices of various systems, including Android and Windows Phone devices.They are also used for netbooks, in cars, wearable devices and other devices.

The first Snapdragon product to be made available to consumer device manufacturers was the QSD8250, which was released in November 2007. It included the first 1 GHz processor for mobile phones. Qualcomm introduced its "Krait" micro-architecture in the second generation of Snapdragon SoCs in 2011, allowing each processor core to adjust its speed based on the device's needs. At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, Qualcomm introduced the first of the Snapdragon 800 series and renamed prior models as the 200, 400 and 600 series. Several new iterations have been introduced since, such as the Snapdragon 805, 810, 615 and 410. Qualcomm re-branded its modem products under the Snapdragon name in December 2014.

Release :

Qualcomm announced it was developing the Scorpion central processing unit (CPU) in November 2007.The Snapdragon system on chip (SoC) was announced in November 2006 and included the Scorpion processor, as well as other semiconductors. This also included Qualcomm's first custom Hexagon digital signal processor (DSP).

According to a Qualcomm spokesperson, it was named Snapdragon, because "Snap and Dragon sounded fast and fierce."The following month, Qualcomm acquired Airgo Networks for an undisclosed amount; it said Airgo's 802.11a/b/g and 802.11n  Wi-Fi technology would be integrated with the Snapdragon product suite. Early versions of Scorpion had a processor core design similar to the Cortex-A8.

Early products:

The first Snapdragon shipments were of the QSD 8250 in November 2007.According to CNET, Snapdragon's claim to fame was having the first 1 GHz mobile phone processor. Most smartphones at the time were using 500 MHz processors.The first generation of Snapdragon products supported a 720p resolution, 3D graphics and a 12-megapixel camera.By November 2008, 15 device manufacturers decided to embed Snapdragon semiconductors in their consumer electronics products.

In November 2008, Qualcomm announced it would also compete against Intel in the netbook processor market with dual-core Snapdragon system-on-chips planned for late 2009.It demonstrated a Snapdragon processor that consumed less power than Intel chips announced around the same time and claimed it would also cost less when released.That same month, Qualcomm introduced a Snapdragon-based prototype netbook called Kayak that used 1.5 GHz processors and was intended for developing markets.

In May 2009, Java SE was ported and optimized for Snapdragon.At the November 2009 Computex Taipei show, Qualcomm announced the QSD8650A addition to the Snapdragon product suite, which was based on 45 nanometer manufacturing processes. It featured a 1.2 GHz processor and had lower power consumption than prior models.

Later models:

In June 2010, Qualcomm began sampling the third generation of Snapdragon products; two dual-core 1.2 GHz system on chips (SoC) called the Mobile Station Modem (MSM) 8260 and 8660.The 8260 was for GSM, UMTS and HSPA+ networks, while the 8660 was for CDMA2000 and EVDO networks. That November Qualcomm announced the MSM8960 for LTE networks.

In early 2011, Qualcomm announced a new processor architecture called Krait,which used the ARM v7 instruction set, but was based on Qualcomm's own processor design. The processors were called S4 and had a feature named Asynchronous Symmetrical Multi-Processing (aSMP), meaning each processor core adjusted its clock speed and voltage based on the device's activity in order to optimize battery usage.Prior models were renamed to S1, S2 and S3 to distinguish each generation.

The S4-based generation of Snapdragon SoCs began shipping to product manufacturers with the MSM8960 in February 2012.In benchmark tests by Anandtech, the MSM8960 had better performance than any other processor tested. In an overall system benchmark, the 8960 obtained a score of 907, compared to 528 and 658 for the Galaxy Nexus and HTC Rezound respectively.In a Quadrant benchmark test, which assesses raw processing power, a dual-core Krait processor had a score of 4,952, whereas the quad-core Tegra 3 was just under 4,000.The quad-core version, APQ8064, was made available in July 2012. It was the first Snapdragon SoC to use Qualcomm's Adreno 320 graphics processing unit (GPU).

Adoption of Snapdragon contributed to Qualcomm's transition from a wireless modem company to one that also produces a wider range of hardware and software for mobile devices.In July 2011 Qualcomm acquired certain assets from GestureTek in order to incorporate its gesture recognition intellectual property into Snapdragon SoCs.In mid-2012 Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon software development kit (SDK) for Android devices at the Uplinq developer conference.The SDK includes tools for facial recognition, gesture recognition, noise cancellation and audio recording.That November Qualcomm acquired some assets from EPOS Development in order to integrate its stylus and gesture recognition technology into Snapdragon products.It also collaborated with Microsoft to optimize Windows Phone 8 for Snapdragon semiconductors.

By 2012, the Snapdragon S4 (Krait core) had taken a dominant share from other Android system-on-chips like Nvidia Tegra and Texas Instruments OMAP which caused the latter to exit the market.As of July 2014, the market share of Android phones had grown to 84.6 percent ,and Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips powered 41% of smartphones.

However, the September 2013 debut of Apple's 64-bit A7 chip in the iPhone 5S forced Qualcomm to rush out a competing 64-bit solution, despite the capable performance of the Snapdragon 800/801/805, since their existing Krait cores were only 32-bit.The first 64-bit SoCs, the Snapdragon 808 and 810, were rushed to market using generic Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53 cores and suffered from overheating problems and throttling, particularly the 810, which led to Samsung ditching Snapdragon for its Galaxy S6 flagship phone.

The Snapdragon 820, with the in-house 64-bit Kyro core, largely solved the performance and heat problems of the Snapdragon 810. By 2015, Snapdragon was used in most non-Apple smartphones.

 Snapdragon Models: (till 2017)

1 Snapdragon S1

2 Snapdragon S2

3 Snapdragon S3

4 Snapdragon S4 series

4.1 Snapdragon S4 Play

4.2 Snapdragon S4 Plus

4.3 Snapdragon S4 Pro

5 Snapdragon 200 series

5.1 Snapdragon 200

5.2 Snapdragon 205, 208, 210 and 212

6 Snapdragon 400 series

6.1 Snapdragon 400

6.2 Snapdragon 410, 412 and 415

6.3 Snapdragon 425, 427, 430 and 435

6.4 Snapdragon 450 and 460

7 Snapdragon 600 series

7.1 Snapdragon 600

7.2 Snapdragon 610, 615 and 616

7.3 Snapdragon 617, 625 and 626

7.4 Snapdragon 650(618), 652(620) and 653

7.5 Snapdragon 630, 636 and 660

7.6 Snapdragon 640 and 670

8 Snapdragon 700 series

9 Snapdragon 800 series

9.1 Snapdragon 800, 801 and 805

9.2 Snapdragon 808 and 810

9.3 Snapdragon 820 and 821

9.4 Snapdragon 835 and 845

10  Wearable Platform

10.1  Snapdragon Wear 1100, 1200 and 2100

11  Automotive Platform

11.1  Snapdragon 602A and 820A

12  Embedded Platform

12.1 Snapdragon 410E, 600E, 810 and 820E

13    Home Hub Platform

13.1 Qualcomm 212 and 624

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