Qualcomm, at the MWC Shanghai 2017, has made various announcements regarding the arrival of its upcoming technologies. First the company unveiled its Snapdragon 450 Mobile Platform, a new entry to the Snapdragon 400 Mobile Platform tier. After this, Qualcomm also announced new Fingerprint sensors which will bring new and enhanced features to the previous generation Qualcomm Snapdragon Sense ID fingerprint technology. Apart from this, the company also brought in the Snapdragon wear 1200 which brings LTE IoT categories M1 and NB1 to new generations wearables.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 450
Starting with Snapdragon 450 mobile platform, it is the newest entry to the 400 mobile platform range from the company. It is first in the entire 400 range to use 14nm FinFET process and is designed to deliver significant improvements in battery life, graphics and compute performance, imaging and LTE connectivity over its predecessor, i.e the Snapdragon 435 Mobile Platform.
Performance:
As per Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 450 comes with higher performing octa-core ARM Cortex A53 CPU which results in 25 percent increase in performance compared to its predecessor. Also, the Adreno 506 GPU delivers a 25 percent increase in graphics as well. It provides 4 additional hours battery usage compared to the Snapdragon 435 and also gives up to a 30 percent reduction in power when gaming, helping consumers stay connected and productive for much longer. The Snapdragon 450 comes with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 support, which can charge a typical smartphone from 0 to 80 percent in about 35 minutes.
Imaging:
According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 450 is the first in the 400-tier to support real-time Bokeh (Live Bokeh) effects along with support for enhanced dual camera with 13 MP sensors or single camera support up to 21 MP hybrid autofocus. It also makes the camera capable of shooting 1080p video at up to 60 fps, enabling slow motion capture. The Snapdragon 450 also includes support for 1920 x 1200 full HD displays, as well as the Qualcomm Hexagon DSP, which enables multimedia, camera and sensor processing at greater performance and lower power than the previous generation.
Connectivity:
The Snapdragon 450 mobile platform provides fast LTE connectivity with the Snapdragon X9 LTE modem, which utilizes 2×20 MHz carrier aggregation in both downlink and uplink for peak speeds of 300 Mbps and 150 Mbps respectively. It supports a large number of mobile networks as well with Snapdragon All Mode, and 802.11ac with MU-MIMO support. The Snapdragon 450 also supports USB 3.0 which enables fast USB data transfer.
Qualcomm’s Advanced Fingerprint Scanning and Authentication Technology
Qualcomm also announced new fingerprint sensing technology which brings new and enhanced features to the previous generation Qualcomm Snapdragon Sense™ ID fingerprint technology. The new technology consists of sensors for Display, Glass and Metal, detection of directional gestures and underwater fingerprint match along with device wake-up. It is also the first commercially announced integrated ultrasonic-based mobile solution to detect heart beat and blood flow for improved mobile authentication experiences.
Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensor for Display is the mobile industry’s first commercially announced multi-functional ultrasonic solution capable of scanning through OLED display stacks of up to 1200 µm, along with enrolling and matching, and Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensors for Glass and Metal are also the first commercially announced ones to scan through up to 800 µm of cover glass and up to 650 µm of aluminium.
Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensors for Glass and Metal are designed to be compatible with the recently announced Snapdragon 660 and 630 Mobile Platforms and future Snapdragon Mobile Platforms as well. The Finger Sensors can also be used as standalone and can be integrated with non-Snapdragon platforms. Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensors for Glass and Metal are expected to be available to OEMs this month, and are expected to arrive in commercial devices in the first half of 2018. Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensor for Display is expected to be available for OEMs to evaluate in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Snapdragon Wear 1200
Qualcomm with intend to bring LTE categories M1 (eMTC) and NB1 (NB-IoT) connectivity to the wearables industry, has launched the new Snapdragon Wear 1200 Platform. As per the company, the Snapdragon Wear 1200 “takes advantage of the wide coverage provided by emerging LTE narrowband technologies, or LTE IoT, to help usher in a new generation of ultra-low power, highly energy efficient, always connected, and cost-efficient experiences to targeted purpose wearable devices such as kid, pet, elderly, and fitness trackers.”