Qualcomm Ships Dual-Core Snapdragon Chipsets 168
rrossman2 writes "Qualcomm has issued a press release revealing it has started shipping new dual-core Snapdragon chipsets. These chipsets run each core at up to 1.2GHz, include a GPU that supports 2D/3D acceleration engines for Open GLES 2.0 and Open VG 1.1, 1080p video encode/decode, dedicated low-power audio engine, integrated low-power GPS, and support for 24-bit WXGA 1280x800 resolution displays. These chipsets come in two variants, the MSM8260 for HSPA+ and the MSM8660 for multi-mode HSPA+/CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev B. The press release also lists QSD8672 as a third-gen chipset like the two mentioned, but doesn't go into any detail of what its role is. With this announcement of shipping chipsets, how long until HTC makes a super smartphone?"
Nahh... (Score:2, Funny)
I'll wait until it makes a super ULTRA smart phone.
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With this, should be able get a 10 hour 12 inch ultralight netbook, that can do 8 hours playing video or gaming. Also they can put a non-windows on it and say android, and sell it really cheap.
All this is directly good - further pressure in Intel and windows margins, and more people expecting instant 'on'. The question is, how soon before Windows 7 on ARM comes along?
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Windows 7 won't be on ARM but Windows Embedded 7 will. That's the OS Microsoft is making to target tablets and it will come out on both ARM and x86 at the same time.
Give me an x86 phone... (Score:2)
Give me a phone where I can run an x86 operating system and x86 software. Give it a USB port, HDMI (or similar) output, and a fast SSD drive. Then I can take it to work, plug it in, and use it. Then, at the end of the day, I can drop it in my pocket, take it home, plug it in, and use it. A consistent computing environment would be great. Right now, I use three machines on a regular basis. This is being typed through Remote Access.
Oh, and I want a phone where I can play Wasteland! IJKL, baby. Gimme s
Re:Give me an x86 phone...BAD MOVE (Score:3, Insightful)
That would be a very bad move since any x86 OS is both bloated, and not suited for a touch screen only interface. They all want keyboard/mouse inputs. Even Apple realized that OS/X was not the thing to run on a smartphone, while HP has dropped Windows 7 for their Slate, Google offers Android, not Chrome, for phones, and Microsoft Win 7 Mobile is really looking iffy to appear at all.
This is also why Microsoft Office and Open Offic
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Microsoft Win 7 Mobile is really looking iffy to appear at all.
Uh, what? [engadget.com]
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Uhm.. as much as i really dislike Apple, I feel obligated to point out that the iphone/pad run stripped down versions of OSX. Apple just removed a bunch of the crap that doesn't need to be there.
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Well, it does have at least very close underlying OS, similar libs used for usermode apps, etc. Does not make it full OSX of course; is not that different from what Android or, especially, MeeGo do.
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From one of the 2009 WWDC session slides: iPhone OS 3.0 and Mac OS X core share over 80% of their source code.
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They are not suited for this type of hardware, memory limitations, screen limitation, and lack of keyboard/mouse.
Ummm, he was asking for a phone without those hardware limitations (i.e. USB, HDMI, SSD drive). It would probably need some rather impressive energy modes in order to switch from desktop to battery modes, but thats all in the software.
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You surely need to work hard with software to make sure it exploits the possibilites of power savings given by hardware...but it's not the same as "thats all in the software"
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you are right of course, "thats all in the software" is a joke that fails because you can't read my body language and haven't heard me say it before :)
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Even Apple realized that OS/X was not the thing to run on a smartphone
Actually, Apple is using OS X on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, and soon, the Apple TV. They changed the name of the OS from OS X to iPhone OS, but it's the same thing. Apple is attempting to differentiate the OS that runs on their desktops, servers, and laptops by calling it "Mac OS X," but it is, in fact, the same underlying BSD operating system, basically, FreeBSD userland and a Mach kernel. Mac OS X uses Quartz with the Aqua theme for it's GUI window management, which is absent from iPhone OS. The eq
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Apple TV currently runs a modified version of Tiger.
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Even Apple realized that OS/X was not the thing to run on a smartphone [...]
Apple run a stripped down version of OS X on the iPhone and iPad.
There's no reason to think Microsoft couldn't do the same with Windows, either, if they were sufficiently motivated.
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That would be a very bad move since any x86 OS is both bloated, and not suited for a touch screen only interface.
This is pure BS. Look at the upcoming Moorestown and the OSes available to run on them. MeeGo runs on it - completely touch-based OS. And, Android also runs on it. There is nothing inherent in the x86 to make it touch-averse. Where it has been lacking so far was performance for the limited power envelop. Moorestown will fix that. The next thing where it will still be lacking is not tight enough integration of communications capability - which is key to create a mobile platform that runs well with limited p
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My first Smart Phone was a Kyocera 6035. I've used them for longer than most people. I know all about the so-called "paradigm" you're talking about. It's crap. Give me a 800x480 screen for mobile use; and a real OS, video out, USB, and BT for desktop use. Then I'll have all the mobile devices in one, which is the proper "paradigm".
Apple switched the OS because they want to lock in the software market. If the iPhone was a real computer, Apple couldn't do that. They also want to get away from x86 so th
Re:Give me an x86 phone...who cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
Mobile usages are limited by available battery technology at least as much as processing power; and the former moves forward much slower. Process lead of Intel doesn't quite work the same as before in this case...
Sure, there's one future, unreleased, next year Intel product [arstechnica.com]; as you can see from the article, basically "smartphones only", no Win for you or generic Linux distro (not a big deal so far). But now it gets interesting..."southbridge" has "system controller/32 bit risc" - would be surprising if that's not some ARM (plus at least another one in radio interface; that's already probably more ARM cores than x86 ones, to keep power consumption at merely acceptable levels; Intel just couldn't do it without ARM). Less efficient and more expensive multichip solution (and of course other manufacturers are expected to make this effort, for miniscule portion of the market...while Intel doesn't risk anything; but anyway, there are no announcements - while phones would need to get certs quite some time before release; Android players have no incentive to switch; Apple has none, either, considering their inhouse ARM team; Samsung goes its own way, their own SoCs; Nokia devices with MeeGo are an uberniche product - they will certainly ride on Symbian for a long time)
Plus Intel doesn't even tell everything - they show those nice power usage numbers only in scenarios...when x86 core is idling; when the "supporting" hardware (with a great help of ARM cores :D ) does the real work. Power usage when x86 is doing something intensive (using its "impressive" speed) is strangely absent...
It will be still probably around an order of magnitude difference. Plus ARM won't stand still, look at the progress in the past decade from, say, ARM7TDMI to latest Cortex.
Again - a progress constrained by battery technology; Intel offering doesn't help that, quite the contrary - their greatest strength, process shrinking, no longer works quite the way as before.
BTW, how is the i960 or Itanium going?
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No need for RTGs. More generally, what you describe is a function of people getting wooed by "sexy" and forgetting about also looking at battery life when making their choice.
Well, TBH I can almost see this new Intel "smartphone Atom" to be reasonably popular in such environment...
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People have tried x86 processors, the Intel Atom and found they just aren't suited to a mobile device like a tablet or smartphone. The battery life just wasn't good enough.
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Regarding Open Office on Android: Android Tablets are coming, Android phones take a BT keyboard, and some have video out...
Regarding Win7 and other regular OSes on mobiles: it may be impossible to get Win7 to be energy efficient, and keep the oodles of power-sucking services (and the basic architecture) of that server/desktop OS. Unlickily, those are probably required for compatibility.
Regarding x86 mobile: x86 was never designed as a low-power, high-efficiency CPU. Attempts to backport that are somewhat su
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Does it have to be a phone? Why not just stuff a portable drive in your pocket and boot terminals off it to whatever OS you fancy?
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because luck has it that you often want to use it when there aren't terminals around.
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Nokia 9110 communicator.
AMD 486 processor and GEOS OS.
Well you did say x86.
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Touche... but it can't play Wasteland!
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With this announcement of shipping chipsets, how long until HTC makes a super smartphone?"
The term you are looking for is 'netbook'.
I mean seriously, how could you an improve a device like the N900 (600 MHz ARM Cortex-A8) with more processing power? The interface of such a device is just too limited to push it like you would a laptop (unless you want to carry around Folding@Home with you), since the screen is just too small to look at more than one thing at once.
ARM-based laptops (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:ARM-based laptops (Score:5, Informative)
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I for one would love to have a full-size passively cooled laptop with low-energy processor and screen.
Not sure about passively cooled, but take a look at this: http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/ [alwaysinnovating.com] (very detailed specs available on site)
Great Timing (Score:4, Interesting)
I said almost.
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You say that as if Dan Lyons was some kind of strong Apple supporter.
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This is the introduction of a CPU, not a final product. The iPhone 4 will likely make it to market ahead of any phones based on this new chip, so you're right not to feel sorry for Jobs, he's laughing all the way to the bank.
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Things that pass nowadays as "great battery life", ehh...
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It's hard to beat the battery life of the TRS-80 Model 100 [oldcomputermuseum.com].
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Well...
"standby battery time of up to six weeks" [nokia.com] , and that seems cautious considering the specs [nokia.com] say "up to 48 days", which would be just below 7 weeks (talk time "up to 13h" there, so realistically 10 probably) ... standby 26 days between charges" [nokia.com]
"up to 12 hours talktime (GSM)
"18 hours and 30 minutes talk time (in GSM mode). 29 days standby time" [nokia.com]
The last two are smarthpones. Yes, those are largely best case scenarios, but they are easily felt in daily usage. Their touchscreen devices aren't that bad, eithe
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Two words: Palm Pilot. Got similar runtime on 2xAAA with more screen resolution AND more CPU power.
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PS. And if one were to run the smartphones I linked to in offline mode most of the time... (still with much greater capabilities compared to TRS-80 Model 100)
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Android is catching up fast there, too. Generally, the rule for Apple is that they end up with quite small market share especially/specifically when looking worldwide.
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1080P (Score:1)
It can encode/decode 1080P, so why didn't they put a 1080P Display controller on it? Your new HD mobile device will still be limited to WXGA 1280x800....So much for an HD iPad competitor.
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Funny, I don't recall the iPad having a 1920x1080 screen. You only have to compete with what the iPad is at the moment since Apple is slow to change their own standards. Just look at how long the iPhone has been stuck at the same screen resolution -- until tomorrow.
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Yes, a HDMI output port would make these things much more like a small PC. Wander around with it, reading your emails, then get to the office and plug a cable into it from your TV/Monitor. Add a bluetooth keyboard and you have something every salesman, accountant, and manager dreams of.
I reckon that's the future of computing devices, not Windows anymore.
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Because "can" doesn't mean "should".
There are plenty of applications for a CPU like this where you don't need a 1080p display controller, and the extra expense of one would prohibit this chip from being useful.
What kind of applications? NAS boxes, automobile computers, industrial meters, audio equipment, mobile phones without video output, robot cleaners, routers, et cetera...
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There are plenty of applications for a CPU like this where you don't need a 1080p display controller, and the extra expense of one would prohibit this chip from being useful.
There are zero applications for HDMI output where people don't want 1080p support. They will settle for 720p but that doesn't mean that people don't want 1080p. Anything 720p but a notebook or something is a sad joke, and I'm talking about the built-in LCD, not the video output capabilities.
With that said, this chip is said to output 1080p via HDMI; the smaller-resolution specification is the highest resolution of LCD panel the built-in device can drive.
Power efficiency? (Score:4, Interesting)
Some power-draw information for H.264 decode, full tilt GPU utilisation, 25/50/100% CPU utilisation of one/both cores would be welcome.
The BBC micro (Score:3, Insightful)
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That could be because x86 stinks, x86 has always stunk, and even Intel doesn't execute it as x86 any longer, but instead translates it to its own RISC-like micro ops.
What's so bad about x86? (Score:3, Interesting)
I did a lot of assembly programming in the 1980s, for nearly every major processor available at the time. The 8086 rocked, in comparison to the others, at least until the 68000 came out.
The one processor that really stunk, IMHO, was the z80, and that's why its lineage died after being so popular. But the others, like the 6809 and 6502, were rather limited in comparison to the 8086.
Of course, virtual memory is a different beast and adapting x86 was a kludge. But I don't see RISC as being any improvement. If
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And how do you reconcile the ending of your post with how ARM owns markets where efficiency is king? (and where there's often not that much of a need to maintain binary compatibility, so also much easier to switch if there was something better; where high competitiveness is much less stalled by external factors)
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The Z80 was a major improvement over the 8080 that it was derived from. It became the most popular 8-bit CPU, and still sells millions every year in variants such as the eZ80 and Z8 microcontrollers.
The 8086 was an extension of the 8080, and thus inherited all of its limitations as well, and they held x86 back for a long time. As you say, a new design, the 68000, was far more pleasurable to use.
However where the 8080 succeeded was being the fourth major Intel CPU design (4004, 8008, 4040, 8080) which gave I
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From your post it's obvious that you never did assembly programming.
The major advantage the z80 had over the 8080 was a reduced chip count. Its architecture and instruction set are ridiculous.
The 8086 was *truly* a major improvement over the 8080. It had exactly the registers a compiler needs, which the z80 lacked. While the z80 tried to extend the 808
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Of course, virtual memory is a different beast and adapting x86 was a kludge. But I don't see RISC as being any improvement. If anything, they should have gone to a *more* complex instruction set, otherwise you start losing efficiency at the lowest level with all the library function calls that are needed.
This is what macros are for. RISC actually reduces the number of cycles an operation requires in most cases because all RISC ops take one cycle. If it takes more than one cycle, it's not RISC. So operations for which we have a single instruction but which take multiple cycles have to be implemented as more instructions, it's true, but not only do they not take any more time to execute but if you don't need all the steps, you can leave some out. Thus RISC provides additional opportunities for optimization.
Th
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Bah, you're talking about *manual* assembly programming, which don't really matter much currently: the design of the ISA for RISC are optimised for compilers..
Some RISC sucks sure, but it's the same for CISCs (x86 sucks big time), so I'm not sure why you do this comparison..
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You can improve ARM code density using the Thumb extension, but it's the variable instruction cycle length that kills x86. Pipelining, branch prediction, etc, is much easier with RISC.
The ARM architecture is far superior to the x86 which is why one of the most competitive markets, mobile phones, has moved there. ARM has consolidated there as they do not have the marketing or R&D budget to take on Intel head to head. The margins have been much higher with desktop CPUs, with marketing and playing the GHz
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Before they take over the netbook market, they have to, you know, actually release a netbook. They've been talking about it for 2 years now and they still haven't released anything.
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Never has been, never will be... ARM is popular because they're very low power, while x86 is not. ATOM is doing better in that respect, and ignoring the power requirements, vastly outperforming all ARM chips available.
ARM has been fooling people for many years now with the same old MHz myth Intel used to use. That nice 1.2GHz ARM core is only getting perhaps 1.2MIPS/MHz if you're lucky, while even an ancient pentium3 does 2.8MIPS/MHz. Modern x86 chips with
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Doesn't Cortex-A8 have already for some time quite a bit greater MIPS than what you write, "not like that's something they might work on" - up to 2MIPS/MHz? Cortex-A9, "that nice 1.2GHz ARM core" seems to be comfortably two times more than you said, per core of course. And ARM also has SIMD extensions...
What "fooling people"? How many people even realise how large number of ARM cores surrounds them all the time? (nvm their speed) If Intel has such advantage, why they haven't released very low clocked (it wo
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MS, for all their failings, was a large part of "bringing PCs to every home" (their stated goal BTW); tried to commoditize the hardware and succeeded. That also brought us cheap boxes for OSS, btw...
Yes, commoditizing the hardware on some decent common ground that's available was a good thing. What you wish for we already had back then - many different incompatible lineages, high prices.
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Their goal has always been to ride the desire for commodity hardware and slip their proprietary software in through the back door... It worked because compared to the cost of hardware, software was irrelevant.. By the time that changed, MS were too entrenched so now people are screwed.
Now they are pushing this ridiculous idea that hardware should be free and given away with expensive software, when in reality it needs to be the other way around.
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Well, not exactly "the other way around" - hardware should be inexpensive, and software too. All things considered, we're getting there.
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Hardware can be inexpensive, but it still incurs per unit costs to produce so can never be free...
Software can be reproduced without per unit costs, so can easily be distributed for free.
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Free is inexpensive, don't you think?
(nvm that not all software has to be explicitly free)
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You say that like you don't have reasons to celebrate already. Who could have thought that its descendants would power mobile phones almost universally? Just a single category of devices, one that ships annually around the number of all PCs in operation wordlwide. Hell, you can possibly find ARM cores in an average PC already. There's also this detail of ARM CPU cores possibly, by now, shipping annually in greater numbers than total number of x86 cores Intel ever made.
ARM processors versus general purpose computers (Score:2)
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I hate patent lawsuits (Score:2, Insightful)
We will not get the great dream phones we all want until the current patent mess is sorted out. As soon as HTC brings out a proper iPhone competitor, Apple will sue the crap out of them, making sure that at least they drag the new product into a mire of fud and drawn out proceedings.
Net result? The customer doesn't get a better device.
Re:I hate patent lawsuits (Score:5, Informative)
As soon as HTC brings out a proper iPhone competitor
Nexus One? Droid Incredible? Evo?
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Nexus One? Droid Incredible? Evo?
My new phone has a correction for you: "That's EVO 4G. Bitch."
Look, just do what my phone says, okay? You don't want to know what it did to the last guy... *shudder*
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As soon as HTC brings out a proper iPhone competitor
Nexus One? Droid Incredible? Evo?
He said comptetitor. Those are all phones that make an iPhone look like crap.
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I went from $60 inet bill + $40 unlimited voice/text a month (no data on the phone) to 109 bucks for unlimited data in my pocket, at home, anywhere, while having thi
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Dude, HTC has sold PDA phones four years before Apple. Who is imitating whom?
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Waiting for the tablet... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Waiting for the tablet... (Score:4, Interesting)
Me too. Further, I would probably pay what Apple is charging. Your feature set is also my feature set, but I also demand GPS and a back-mounted camera of at least 3MP. Bluetooth and GPS are uneasy partners and I don't want a dongle dragging on the ground; a camera is mandatory for reality overlay.
Mobile Phones ain't done, until Flash does run!!! (Score:2)
99% of time we use our computers on the internet, and most sites nowadays contain some sort of Flash video. Well, no mobile plays them all out of the box, as we speak. It's not the hardware that is the problem, it's the software.
There are lots of things that make Flash video necessary on mobile devices. For example, there are lots of video presentations about newest technologies. It's a shame that I have to sit in front of a PC for one hour to watch these, when the same thing could have been done on the way
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I take it you've never heard of the Nokia N900? Runs Linux (Maemo), comes out of the box with full Flash 9 capability (in a Gecko-based browser) and Flash 10 will be available soon. Even on the older N800 (which, unlike the 900, isn't actually a phone) I could load Pandora or watch YouTube videos using Flash - in fact, either AdBlock or FlashBlock are near-essential for browsing on those devices, due to all the Flash. Fortunately, they (and at least one other Firefox extension) are available, as is full Fir
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1280x800? (Score:2)
Bleh, so I will have to wait for Beagleboard 2.0 with OMAP4.
DO WANT!
Stop that and make a new version of Eudora! (Score:2)
What are you thinking about Quallcomm!
(And no, there aren't any emails with the feel of Eudora, just a cheap reskin of some lesser mail program)
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there aren't any emails with the feel of Eudora, just a cheap reskin of some lesser mail program
Wow, you're pining for the 'feel' of Eudora, when the crappy feel of Eudora ... is what killed Eudora. I guess there's something for everyone, but I wouldn't get my hopes up, if I were you.
ARM-based pad as the new desktop (Score:2)
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If it only had the capabilities: a decent amount of memory, proper graphics with hardware-accelerated video and HDMI out to a proper screen, USB ports for a keyboard, bluray and storage.
A built in Bluray player on a tablet..........I think what you're looking for is called a laptop.
Frankly it is to the point now where I should hand in my geek card because I'm understanding why people like Apple's approach. When I go home, I don't want to deal with crap. I do enough at that at work. When I'm at home I just want things to work. Over the past 8 years, I've not had any problems with Apple's DRM. Yes it maybe there, but it has never inconvenienced me. And that's the point. A lot of peopl
Re:MSM has always been dual core (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MSM has always been dual core-MOD THIS (Score:3)
Good thing I don't have mod points today. I wouldn't know whether to mod you funny, insightful, or troll.
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Flash likes it cpu time on some operating systems so we will have to see what the real world tests show.
More cores vs battery needs vs flash
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Good thing I don't have mod points today. I wouldn't know whether to mod you funny, insightful, or troll.
Troll is for things you don't believe but say anyway to get attention. The mod you were thinking of was 'flamebait'. Modding the above as troll is abuse of moderation, and further, abuses the spirit of slashdot moderation (focus on up-mods.)
Are you a regular abuser of moderation?
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I put on my robe and wizard hat...
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http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2008/08/12/44304/arm-outlines-power-benefit-of-multicore-processors.htm [electronicsweekly.com]
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I read somewhere that it's actually more efficient in a typical usage scenario to have 2 cores, one of which you can shut down, both that you can throttle, than to have just 1. In terms of power draw and heat dissipation.
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Yes and no. It really depends on how the dual-core is architected. Assuming you had 2 cores with independent frequency and voltage scaling and assuming you were running two tasks that were fairly processor and memory intensive, it could indeed be beneficial to run them on 2 cores. Context switching is a killer on cache and memory and having a single CPU throttle between multiple processes is inefficient compared to two separate CPU's working out of their own caches.
Moreover, power is a function of voltage s
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Tegra doesn't have radio interface built-in, right? Well, that's its huge inferiority right there; and probably the main reason why it doesn't show up in any smartphones.
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Hard to overcome - no, of course not. But Nvidia hasn't done so; and you can't expect device manufacturers to make the effort (if Nv would even allow it...) while they can just take some ready, integrated solution.
As for other reasons, who knows. My personal impression from the first Tegra was that it's a bit unballanced - having powerful GFX and quite ancient ARM cores in the time when much better ones were already on the market (and trying to hide it with the hype of "everything will be accelerated by GPU
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What? Why bring Fusion into this? Running "phone parts of a phone" on it instead of dedicated silicon? Yeah, it would greatly simplify things for sure - a phone which drains its battery in minutes has quite simple mode of "operation" after that...
There's signalling / protocol stack too, of course - but that can run even on quite old ARM cores.
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Luckily, the Snapdragon line (QSD8xxx) have all had working graphics drivers for the platforms it's been released with (WM 6.5 and Android, AFAIK).
My current Nexus One has full OpenGL ES 2.0 capability and hardware MPEG4 a