Dual-Core Snapdragon Processors Coming to Smartphones
The Snapdragon processor has quickly become the default chip for upcoming smartphones because of its impressive processing power. Now Qualcomm, manufacturer of the Snapdragon, is bringing another innovation to the smartphone chip: dual-core processing.
Using multiple "cores" in processors has been a common technique in computing for years because it allows computers to complete tasks even faster. Instead of having one single processor, multi-core chips pack two or more (there are even 6- and 8-core chips in development) processor cores into a single chip. Each core can perform separate tasks, essentially working in tandem to complete tasks faster.
While smartphones have quickly gained on computers in terms of processing power, they have only been single-core affairs. The new Snapdragon processor, announced by Qualcomm, brings dual-core computing to smartphones, at a speed of 1.2GHz. By comparison, netbooks only recently got dual-core Intel Atom processors, and they run at 1.6GHz.
Pretty soon, phones will easily be more powerful than netbooks. This latest generation of the Snapdragon processor will even allow some features that netbooks don't have, such as support for 1080p resolution HD video playback and 3-D acceleration. It will be even more exciting to see what kind of apps developers can come up with to put this new processing power to use.
"We are very excited by the innovation our customers are already showing as they begin designing products based on our dual-core … chipsets," said Steve Mollenkopf, executive vice president of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, in a statement.
