Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 480 – First Low-End 5G SoC

Today, Qualcomm is taking a big step forward to enable large-scale adoption of 5G with the announcements of the new low-end 5G SoC Snapdragon 480. The company had already hinted a few months ago about the release of a Snapdragon 400 series model with 5G compatibility, bringing the new standard of connectivity to the cheapest devices on the market, targeting the super high-volume price bracket of $ 250.

The new Snapdragon 480 is an extremely impressive SoC not only because of its 5G feature list, but also because it is a major performance upgrade in so many ways, including the use of two Cortex-A76 cores as the primary performance processors – a very big leap into the 400 series family, which is likely a major breakthrough in performance for millions of low-cost devices on the market.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Series SoC
SoC	Snapdragon 439	Snapdragon 450	Snapdragon 460	Snapdragon 480
CPU	4x CA53 At 2.2 GHz 4x CA53 At 1.7 GHz	8x CA53 At 2.3 GHz	4x Kryo 240 (CA73) At 1.8 GHz 4x Kryo 240 (CA53) At 1.8 GHz	2x Cortex-A76 At 2.0 GHz 6x Cortex-A55 At 1.8 GHz
GPU	Adreno 505	Adreno 506	Adreno 610	Adreno 619
DSP	Hexagon 536	Hexagon 546	Hexagon 683	Hexagon 686
ISP / Camera	Spectra 21MP single 8MP dual	Spectra 21MP single 13MP dual	Spectra 340 36MP single 22MP dual	Spectra 345 64MP single 25 + 13MP dual 13MP triple
Encode/ Decode	1080p30 H.264	1080p60 H.264 and H.265
Memory	1x 32-bit at 933 MHz LPDDR3 7.4 GB / s		2x 16 bits at 1866 MHz LPDDR4X 14.9 GB / s	2x 16 bits at 2133 MHz LPDDR4X 17.0 GB / s
Integrated modem	Snapdragon X6 LTE (Category 4/5) DL = 150 Mbps 2 x 10 MHz AC, 64 QAM UL = 75 Mbps 1 x 10 MHz AC, 64 QAM	Snapdragon X9 LTE (Category 7/13) DL = 300 Mbps 2 x 20 MHz AC, 64 QAM UL = 150 Mbps 2 x 10 MHz AC, 64 QAM	Snapdragon X11 LTE (Cat 12/13) DL = 390 Mbps 2 x 20 MHz AC, 256 QAM UL = 150 Mbps 2 x 20 MHz AC, 64 QAM	Snapdragon X51 LTE DL = 800 Mbps UL = 210 Mbps 5G NR sub-6 + mmWave (100 + 200 MHz) DL = 2500 Mbps UL = 660 Mbps
Mfc. Process	12 nm LPP	14 nm LPP	11 nm LPP	LPP 8 nm

Starting with the processor configuration, the new Snapdragon 480 is quite exciting for a low-end SoC, as it ditches the older Cortex-A73 cores from the previous generation Snapdragon 460 for a pair of newer Cortex-A76 cores, running at 2.0 GHz. It is not the most recent CPU IP on the market, but upgrading from an A73 to an A76 is extremely important in terms of single-thread performance and should bring significant user experience benefits to users. new devices using the Snapdragon 480. The new SoC is a 2 + 6 processor design, unlike the 4 + 4 configuration of its predecessor – multithreaded performance might not be as important, but for this class of SoC I don’t not see this as a problem. The processor setup actually looks almost identical to what we saw on the Snapdragon 675 – these parts would be good indicators of what to expect from the new 480 design.

On the GPU side we are seeing an upgrade from an Adreno 610 to an Adreno 619 – Qualcomm here promises a 100% increase in performance compared to its predecessor in the Snapdragon 460.

On the memory side, it’s still a low-cost LPDDR4X 2x16b SoC, but we saw a slight increase in frequencies at 2133 MHz.

AI performance would be increased by 70%, in part thanks to the upgrade to a new Hexagon 686 DSP block with vector and tensor extensions. Interestingly, on the camera side, Qualcomm cites that they have actually implemented a triple ISP system, a feature that was only recently announced in the flagship Snapdragon 888 a few weeks ago. . The maximum sensor resolutions are in a 64MP for a single module, 25 + 13MP in dual camera mode, or 13 + 13 + 13MP in triple sensor capture mode.

Oddly enough, even though the ISP’s capabilities have increased this generation, the video encoder is still limited to only 1080p60 H.264 / H.265. Qualcomm also reveals that the display controller achieves a maximum of 1080 x 2520, although it supports refresh rates up to 120Hz.

5G in the low end

While the Snapdragon 480 would have looked impressive only with the aforementioned specification upgrades, the big feature of the next-gen SoC is its new modem subsystem that fully supports 5G NR.

The integrated X51 modem supports LTE downlink up to 800Mbps and uplink 210Mbps, as well as combined 5G sub-6 and mmWave throughput of up to 2500Mbps downlink and 660Mbps uplink. The spectral capacity below 6 GHz drops to 100 MHz, but what is very surprising to see is that even though the chipset is a low-end low-cost design, it still exhibits mmWave capabilities – albeit with much smaller spectral bandwidth compared to the larger flagship. modems, dropping to just 200 MHz. Since currently in the United States, mmWave plays an important marketing role in 5G deployments, supporting the new technology is a must in order to be able to achieve device design gains, although it is a bit of a drag. conflicting functionality to have in the low end. cost sensitive devices.

The X51 modem is compatible with all major new 5G technologies, supporting 5G autonomous (SA) and non-autonomous (NSA) FDD and TDD networks, as well as DSS (dynamic spectrum sharing).

Next, a new chip is made on Samsung’s 8nm process node, which should give it very good power efficiency.

Partner vendors included in Qualcomm’s announcement included HMD Global, OPPO and Vivo, endorsing the new chipset. More interestingly, OnePlus was also among the providers to note the new chipset – maybe that signals the arrival of a new low-end OnePlus device?

Qualcomm expects the first Snapdragon 480 devices to be announced this month.

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