Qualcomm flashes MSM8660 Snapdragon at CES 2011

2011 marks the year that promises to bring the performance war from desktop computers to cellular devices. And to this end, the likes of Qualcomm, Samsung and Texas Instruments have been slugging it out for awhile. The race for a 1 GHz plus CPU, as well as multiple cores is set to reach consumer shores this year. Although MSM8660 silicon has been announced for a while, CES 2011 was the stage chosen to demo the MSM8660, which is Qualcomm’s latest SoC. This SoC consists of two ARM Cortex-A8 cores, (that Qualcomm calls Scorpion cores), and a 45nm, Adreno 220 GPU. The CPU cores run at a blistering 1.2 GHz. Adreno is a name given to the Z430, that was developed by Imageon – the mobile graphics department of AMD, that was bought by Qualcomm. In fact, 1.5 GHz parts have been sampled, and are market ready. We hope the mobile CPU market doesn’t fall prey to the delusion of more-power-is-better, for there is no end to that coaster ride.

So what does the MSM8660 do for us? And how exactly do two 1.2 GHz cores benefit my cellphone and myself? How about 1080p video recording capability, and 1080p decoding ability along with the power to decode multiple-channel surround sound audio? Add to this a 5-inch, Super LCD display, and it’s goodbye HDTV. Well, not quite, but this is heady stuff – we’re being given more power in the palm of our hand, than our desktops had six years back. Snapdragon SoC already has baseband modem chips built in, saving on the need for third party silicon – an additional plus.

Let’s take a look at Qualcomm’s most noteworthy attempts over the past two years:

[RELATED_ARTICLE]Qualcomm had a lot to show off about their new SoC. What followed was a barrage of physics-enabled games, video conferencing between multiple parties and high-definition stereoscopic 3D video – all to demonstrate the prowess of the the two Scorpion cores and the Adreno 220. All of this was demoed on a simple square handset, sans any frills. Obviously, this was just to showcase the hardware underneath the phone, before handset manufacturers design shells around this powerhouse. We should see the MSM8660 in action later this year, as several handset manufacturers be itching to drop this into their devices. The MSM8260, the same SoC design, minus the CDMA element, has already been announced for the ASUS Eee Pad Memo, a 7-inch tablet, running Android. Claims of better lower power consumption and therefore better battery performance owing to two cores sharing the load and working less than a single core in the process are extremely promising. More for less seems to have gotten everybody’s attention. We’ll be doing a feature on mobile computing, and where it’s headed, in the near future – watch out for it.

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Michael Browne