Qualcomm will unveil the Snapdragon 865 on December 3

Qualcomm likes to host its annual summit late in the year in December where it unveils its next-generation products, including the flagship chipset for the next year. This year’s Snapdragon Tech Summit will once again be taking place in Maui from December 3 to December 5 where the company is expected to unveil the Snapdragon 865 which will be powering the next flagship devices from OnePlus, Samsung, Oppo, Vivo and the likes.

The Snapdragon 865 will, of course, be the most important announcement at the event, but there are more products that are expected from Qualcomm, this year. For one, the name Snapdragon 865 was confirmed when Chinese luxury phone maker 8848 revealed its flagship phone called the Titanium M6 5G, due to launch next year. The phone will be powered by the upcoming flagship chipset.

What to expect from the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2019?

5G and non-5G Snapdragon 865

The Snapdragon 865 will succeed the Snapdragon 855, which featured in almost all high-end and flagship Android phones launched in India this year. Intriguingly, Qualcomm has managed to keep the secrets of the Snapdragon 865 closely guarded. The SoC did appear on Geekbench listings back in August with the model number Qualcomm Kona. There is also another variant of the same called the Snapdragon Huracan, according to tipster, Roland Quandt. This indicates that Qualcomm could finally offer a 5G-modem integrated with the SoC, something that Huawei has already managed to do with the HiSilicon Kirin 990 on the Mate 30 Pro this year.

According to previous reports, the Snapdragon 865, named internally as SD8250, will support LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 3.0 storage and is expected to be made on TSMC’s 7nm FinFET process. The chipset is expected to bring upgraded Adreno GPUs and new CPU cores based on the Cortex-A77 design released by ARM back in June. The company also will be focusing on faster and more versatile AI and image processing.

 Mid-range 5G-integrated SoCs

5G will continue grabbing the limelight with Qualcomm now aiming to trickle down 5G technologies to the affordable segment. At IFA 2019, the company had reinforced its commitment to bring 5G support to the 6, 7 and 8-series chipsets in the future. These chipsets will be able to support 5G networks without requiring a discrete 5G modem. Qualcomm also said the new 7-series SoCs with 5G modems integrated will become commercially ready by the last quarter of 2019, indicating that the first wave of 5G mid-range smartphones could be launch as soon as the Q1 2020.

As previously reported, 12 OEMs already plans to implement the 7-series 5G SoC in their upcoming devices. These include Vivo, Motorola, HMD Global, Oppo, Realme and more. Similarly, the 6-series 5G SoCs will reportedly be ready by the second half of 2020. Considering the staggered timeline of the launches, Qualcomm might just save the details about the 5G mid-range SoCs for later in 2020.

ARM-based laptop processor, successor to the Snapdragon 8CX

Qualcomm made a big splash with an ARM-based processor dedicated to thin-and-light laptops called the Snapdragon 8CX. It's got its own cores, GPU and the like. We expect the company to announce a successor, even though there weren’t many takers for the laptop SoC this year. Details about it are pretty scant, but we expect this year’s version to come with a 5G integrated modem.

Chips for wearables and audio products

Aside from the mobile and laptop chips, Qualcomm also makes chips for smart wearables. The Snapdragon Wear platform might see a new entrant to boost the Android-based smartwatch category. Furthermore, there could be a new chip announced for smart speakers, an industry that is presently dominated by Qualcomm’s rival MediaTek.

Digit will be there at the Snapdragon Tech Summit in Maui to bring you all the deets on the latest technologies from December 3rd to December 5th. Stay tuned.

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