Paul Briden 10/05/2017 - 8:05am

Qualcomm has announced two new 600 series chipsets for mid-tier smartphones

Qualcomm has officially announced its two latest mobile processors as the Snapdragon 660 and Snapdragon 630, these are the successor models to the Snapdragon 653 and Snapdragon 626.

The Snapdragon 660, interestingly, is the first member of Qualcomm's mid-tier 600-series to pack the firm's own bespoke Kryo core design; that's the same Kryo cores we've seen in flagship models such as the Snapdragon 820. It's an octo-core chipset built on 14 nanometre semiconductor architecture, with eight Kryo 260 cores clocked at 2.2GHz. The GPU for this SoC has also been upgraded from an Adreno 510 aboard the Snapdragon 653 to the newer Adreno 512.

Qualcomm says the CPUs will offer 20% faster performance than its predecessor while the GPU will give a 30% uplift in graphical processing speed. Other noteworthy features include Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0 which should dramatically improve charging speeds where leveraged by OEMs.

Here's the full list of features:

  • Snapdragon X12 LTE modem
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac Wave 2
  • 2x2 MIMO
  • Bluetooth 5.0
  • Qualcomm TruSignal adaptive antenna tuning
  • 600Mbps data and 867Mbps Wi-Fi peak download speed
  • USB 3.1
  • Qualcomm Spectra 160 ISP
  • 4K video capture
  • QHD display support
  • Qualcomm Aqstic audio codec support
  • Qualcomm Hexagon 680 DSP
  • Qualcomm Hexagon Vector eXtensions (HVX)
  • Qualcomm All-Ways Aware

As with the previous models, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 is a littler lower down the tree than the Snapdragon 660, intended for lower-mid tier devices. It still uses ARM Cortex-A53 core architecture rather than Kryo, but is an octa-core nonetheless with eight of these still 14nm cores clocked at 2.2GHz, together with an Adreno 508 GPU - Qualcomm promises a 10% speed boost and 30% improvement in graphical performance.

  • Snapdragon X12 LTE modem
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac Wave 2#
  • Bluetooth 5.0
  • Qualcomm TruSignal adaptive antenna tuning
  • 600Mbps data and 433Mbps Wi-Fi peak download speed
  • USB 3.1
  • Qualcomm Spectra 160 ISP
  • 4K video capture
  • 1080p display support
  • Qualcomm Aqstic audio codec support
  • Qualcomm Hexagon 642 DSP
  • Qualcomm All-Ways Aware
  • QuickCharge 4.0

The Snapdragon 660 is already shipping to OEMs and is expected to land inside devices hitting retail by the end of Q2. The Snapdragon 630 is expected to arrive in devices by Q3.