Qualcomm reportedly working on a successor to the Snapdragon 8cx

Qualcomm is reportedly working on a new high-end ARM chip with the model name Snapdragon SC8280. While few details are available, we hope this will be Qualcomm’s response to Apple Silicon, which the Cupertino-based company has launched in its latest MacBook line to rave reviews.

According to a report by WinFuture citing import-export databases, Qualcomm is currently developing the Snapdragon SC8280 (not the final name), which is described as the successor to the Snapdragon 8cx and 8cx Gen 2. “In development platforms tested by Qualcomm, in addition of a variant with eight gigabytes of LPPDR5 RAM, variants with a total of 32 GB of LPDDR4X memory are used, ”WinFuture said. “In addition to a ‘basic’ version of the chip, there is probably another more powerful variant.”

The Snapdragon 8cx, which is found in the Surface Pro X and a few other high-end Windows 10s on ARM PCs, can be configured with up to 16GB of RAM. Tests conducted by Qualcomm include the integrated Snapdragon X55 modem for 5G connectivity, as well as support for 14-inch displays. Other specifications of the test device were not mentioned in the report, so we don’t know what other features and standards the SoC will support.

WinFuture claims that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SC8280 is 20 × 17 millimeters – larger than the current size of 20 × 15 mm – so it can have more than 8 cores. However, we don’t know any details about the microarchitecture of these processor cores, what their maximum clock speeds are, and how they are grouped together. Will Qualcomm use ARM’s Cortex-X1 cores for a high performance cluster, or will it primarily use ARM’s new Cortex-A78C?

Today’s report, along with confirmation of an acquisition of NUVIA, underscores how serious Qualcomm is in penetrating the PC space. The acquisition of NUVIA could potentially see the company develop future Snapdragon chipsets with custom processor cores that come close to the speeds Apple achieves, but it’s too early to say whether Qualcomm will be able to close the gap. Apple’s advantage over Qualcomm and Microsoft goes beyond raw performance, so even if we do get a Snapdragon 8cx successor, there’s no guarantee that a next-gen Surface Pro X will deliver the same experience offered by Apple’s latest MacBooks.

Featured Image: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2, the company’s high-end mobile computing platform.