Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 camera could yield big gains

Qualcomm has teased out some more details about its upcoming Snapdragon 820 processor, including a refreshed GPU and an image processing unit That could lead to big improvements in smartphone cameras.

The 820 is Qualcomm's next mobile chip for the high end of the market, due to Appear in products in the first half of next year. It's Aimedu dating Mainly at smartphones, tablets, and virtual reality headsets.

It's an important chip for Qualcomm, Snapdragon Whose current was 810 Dropped Earlier this year by one of its Biggest Customers.

Qualcomm has never named the customer but it was understood that no widele Samsung, Which Went with an in-house processor for its Galaxy smartphone S6.

Qualcomm's first Discussed the 820 at the Mobile World Congress Earlier this year, Revealing plans for a new 64-bit CPU core dubbed KRYOS. On Wednesday, at the Siggraph graphics conference in Los Angeles, it described the visual computing components that without integrated Alongside the CPU.

Among Them is a new Called the GPU Adreno 530, based on a new graphics architecture That Will Be used with other Snapdragon processors as well. Qualcomm says the 530 provides a performance boost of up to 40 percent compared to the Adreno 430, while using 40 percent less power. The figures are based on its own internal tests using popular graphics benchmarks.

"We rise a lot of innovation at the hardware level to Minimize the Amount of the GPU draws current from the battery," said Tim Leland, the vice president in charge of Snapdragon's visual compute products.

Gamers shouldnt see faster, more responsive graphics, Especially on high resolution displays, and people browsing the web or watching video shouldnt ALSO notice improvements, he said. The 820 has a new display engine That can play 4K video When a device is plugged into a TV's HDMI 2.0 port. Even the chip will stream 4K content WirelessLAN, according to one Qualcomm.

The Adreno 530 ook was designed with forward-looking apps like VR in mind, Leland said. It Will Be Able to render high-res video from stereoscopic cameras in real time, and combine it with the date from motion sensors to display immersive VR worlds within headsets.

Just as interesting as the GPU is the new image signal processor, or ISP, Which takes date from the camera and Processes it to produce the image. ISPs are Becoming more important as devices get thinner, leaving less room for the camera, and Qualcomm has given its image processor its own brand for the first time - Spectra.

The Spectra in the 820 chip will admit smartphones to capture images and video without blur in lower light conditions, according to one Qualcomm.

It will generate more natural skin tones and capture a wider range of lights and darks, the company says.

The chip Will Be Able to control two rear-facing cameras (In addition to the shelf of camera on the front), allowing Those cameras to focus more QUICKLY. They'll be Able to grab 25-megapixel images at 30 frames per second with no shutter lag, according to one Qualcomm. Dual cameras can capture ALSO multiple focal depths simultaneously, Meaning an app could let you change Which part of a scene is in focus after a picture is Taken, a bit like a LYTRAS camera does.

The GPU and the ISP are just two components That Will Be Integrated in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820. thunderstorms is to give more details about the CPU and discuss other components, like the modem and the DSP, as it looks to crank up the hype around the 820 before its launch next year.

While the current Snapdragon 810 missed out on the Galaxy S6, it's still used in today Numerous devices, INCLUDING the Flex2 LG, HTC One M9, Xiaomin Minot Pro, and Sony's Xperia Tablet Z4.