Qualcomm, the largest SoC maker has announced 2 new quad-core Snapdragon S4 chips. The MSM8226 and MSM8626 are the quad-core versions of MSM8225 and MSM8625 that were announced last December. These new chips would feature Adreno 305 GPU instead of Adreno 203 in the previous version and would offer long battery life for mass market smartphones. These have integrated WTR2605 multi-mode radio transceiver for china-specific bands such as TD-SCDMA, CDMA 1xAdv and HSPA+ that also saves power up to 40 percent compared to previous generations. Qualcomm announced MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q quad-core Snapdragon S4 Play chips few months back.
Highlights of MSM8226 and MSM8626
- Adreno 305 GPU
- Support for 1080p capture and playback
- Support for up to a 13 megapixel camera
- Integrated multi-mode UMTS, CDMA and TD-SCDMA, WiFi and Bluetooth
- Integrated WTR2605 multi-mode radio transceiver with GPS core with GLONASS and Beidou support
- Support for Multi-SIM capabilities with Dual SIM, Dual Standby; and Dual SIM, Dual Active
Qualcomm plans to release Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) versions of both MSM8226 and MSM8626 processors QRD8226 and QRD8626 for sampling by the second quarter of 2013.