Qualcomm Inc. has shared technical details about the Snapdragon 888, its new flagship mobile processor, which is likely to power many of next year’s top-end Android smartphones and tablets.

The company released the chip’s specifications this morning after previewing it on Tuesday at its virtual Snapdragon Tech Summit.

Qualcomm is a key semiconductor supplier to the handset industry. The company’s processors can be found in a sizable percentage of the world’s Android phones, while its 5G modem chips run inside Apple Inc.’s latest iPhones and many other devices.

The new Snapdragon 888 detailed today, is, like all the products in the Snapdragon product line, a system-on-chip that integrates multiple computing modules on a single die. At its heart is a new central processing unit model consisting of a “prime” core and seven less powerful secondary cores. Together, Qualcomm said, they manage to provide up to 25% higher performance than its previous-generation CPU.

The increased computing capacity partially stems from the fact that the CPU and the rest of the Snapdragon 888 are manufactured using newer fabrication technology. Qualcomm has partnered with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to produce the chip using the latter firm’s latest five-nanometer process.

The switch to a five-nanometer architecture also benefited the Snapdragon 888’s onboard graphics processing unit, which offloads rendering tasks from the CPU. Qualcomm is promising a hefty 35% performance improvement with 20% higher power efficiency.

Alongside the CPU and GPU, the Snapdragon includes a variety of other computing modules to speed up certain niche processing tasks. An integrated artificial intelligence engine dubbed the Hexagon 780 offers threefold better performance per watt than its predecessor. Additionally, Qualcomm says that a new “triple” image signal processor will allow devices powered by the Snapdragon 888 to capture up to three 4K HDR video feeds or three 28-megapixel photos at once.

The latter feature could potentially enable new app use cases for smartphones with multiple cameras. Samsung’s top-end Galaxy S20 Ultra smartphone, for example, has four cameras plus a depth sensor.

In the networking department, the Snapdragon 888 comes with an integrated 5G modem chip to enable high-speed connections over carrier infrastructure. Qualcomm is promising maximum speeds of 7.5 gigabits per second. For Wi-Fi networks, in turn, the chip supports the latest Wi-Fi E6 standard, which makes it possible to send data over a larger number of frequencies as a way of increasing throughput.

Qualcomm’s 5G roadmap previously saw the company bring the technology to its high-end Snapdragon models before later adding support to the other chips in the product line. The  company might take a similar approach with the innovations introduced in the Snapdragon 888. At least some of the technologies underpinning the chip’s various features, such as its ultra-efficient AI module, could eventually arrive to Qualcomm’s lower-level processors. 

Photo: Qualcomm