I find myself perpetually wishing that the future was here today, don’t you? I mean, 2 years ago, the idea of 1GHz chips in phones was mind-blowing, but — despite this — I can’t help but feel lustful for the next generation.
So, it is with this lusty game of techno-cat and robo-mouse in mind that I present to you information regarding the next generation of Qualcomm’s ever-popular Snapdragon platform. Be warned though, these details are smokin’.
Qualcomm today revealed that their next-gen System-On-a-Chips — known as the MSM8960 SoC — will be based on a 28nm manufacturing process, and will house dual-core processors promising not only a 5x speed improvement, but a 75% reduction in power consumption.
It isn’t clear what the “reduction” is compared against (eg standby vs full crank, or the 65nm chips vs 45nm chips, for example), so don’t get too excited just yet, but even if real-world differences don’t translate to a 75% reduction, decreased power requirements are always welcome.
The new SoCs will use Seperately announced was the Adreno 3xx GPU, which offers a 4x improvement in 3D graphics capabilities.
As you can see from the handy-dandy illustration, the performance in these chips is comparable to an Xbox 360 or PS3 (with current chips being Wiis or PS2s). Imagine that: a PS3 in your pocket. My techno-senses are all a tingle!
And what’s a next-gen chip without a next-gen network behind it: the MSM8960 will also natively support both LTE and multi-mode 3G networks.
But now the bad news: these babies won’t ship until 2011, meaning you won’t see them in a phone until the far-off days of 2012. As Greg would say: Sad Trombone.
For more slides and even more details, be sure to hit up Anandtech‘s article on the announcement.