Chip maker Qualcomm’s recent demo event in New York revealed the 64-bit, octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor which was announced back in April this year and is the company’s latest flagship application processor. This processor is not just the company’s very first 20nm (TSMC) SoC but also holds strategic importance in the industry, being its first multi-channel 4G LTE SoC which supports Category 9 Carrier Aggregation. And that’s not where the first of firsts ends, the chip is Qualcomm’s first 64-bit ARMv8 CPUs and also the first chip which uses the Adreno 430 GPU. The chip also extends support for dual 14-bit ISP camera and this is another first for the company.
The hardware implementation of 4K HEVC/H. 265 video encode is also another interesting development which hasn’t been seen before on any of the Qualcomm processors. Among other firsts is the processor’s ability to bring the first UFS 2.0 storage support; and Qualcomm’s first WCD9330 analog codec. However, there is still some time till we get to see these developments since the Snapdragon 810 processor isn’t going to appear on the consumer devices till 2015.
In the recent demonstration, the company showed the processor on three completely different platforms including a handset, a tablet, and a sleek 6-inch phablet. Though the consumer devices are quite far from receiving this latest processor, some rumors have floated in from TechnoBuffalo which indicate that among the very first devices to include this will be an updated version of Samsung Galaxy Note, the forthcoming Galaxy S6 and most likely the new HTC One model.