Powering a significant portion of today's smartphones, Qualcomm's Snapdragon is one of the most popular SoC solutions available. The company undoubtedly hopes to maintain that momentum as the competition heats up with products like Nvidia's dual-core Cortex A9-based Tegra 2, and today it shared details on one of its next-generation Snapdragon chips, the MSM8960.
The overhauled SoC utilizes 28nm fabrication tech and features a new architecture that promises more speed in addition to the usual improved power efficiency. The updated architecture provides speed increase of up to 3x, while another 2x boost is expected from the inclusion of a second processing core. Despite that extra muscle, the package consumes up to 75% less power.
Along with the processor changes, Qualcomm's MSM8960 packs an Adreno 3xx GPU that boasts a 4x increase in graphics performance over the Adreno 130. The new GPU supposedly offers speed on par with Xbox 360 and PS3, compared to the first-gen chip, which is compared to the PSP or DS. MSM8960 also supports LTE, 3G, WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth and FM connectivity.