Who Will Become the New Darling of Smartphone Chips?

With the appearance of the 700 series Xiaolong 710, the debate among Xiaolong 660, 670 and 710 has not stopped. The positioning of 700 series is similar to that of 600 series, both of which focus on the medium and high-end market. Although the 700 series is a higher-level existence, many people still can't clarify the advantages or differences between the 700 series and the 600 series.

What is the strength of Xiaolong 710 Processor? Can it beat Xiaolong 670 and Xiaolong 660 and become the new darling of mainstream smartphone chips? Let's analyze it from several dimensions.

Parameter analysis: 10nm process is more advanced

The snapdragon 710 adopts a 10nm process and an 8-core CPU design. It is composed of two high-performance kryo 360 cores running at 2.2GHz and six kryo 360 energy efficiency cores running at 1.7GHz. It supports two 16bit lpddr4x memories running at 1866mhz and up to 8GB ram. The GPU is Adreno 616 and the DSP is hexagon 685. The ISP equipped is spectrum 250, which supports up to 20 megapixel dual camera and 32 megapixel single camera.

Xiaolong 710 is equipped with x15 LTE modem, with peak download speed of 800Mbps and peak upload speed of 150Mbps. It supports 4x4 MIMO technology.

Xiaolong 670 is also based on the 10nm process. The CPU is also designed with 8 cores. It is composed of 2 kryo 360 performance cores running at 2GHz and 6 kyro 360 energy efficiency cores running at 1.7GHz. It also supports two 16bit lpddr4x memories running at 1866mhz, and the GPU is Adreno 615. The DSP is hexagon 685. Like the snapdragon 710, the ISP is the spectrum 250, but the supported camera specification is reduced to 16 megapixel dual camera or 25 megapixel single camera.

Xiaolong 670 has a built-in X12 LTE modem, with a peak download speed of 600mbps and a maximum upload speed of 150Mbps. WiFi supports 2x2 MIMO.

From the literal data alone, the difference between Xiaolong 710 and Xiaolong 670 is very small. The main performance is that the CPU dominant frequency of Xiaolong 670 is 200MHz lower than that of Xiaolong 710. In addition, Xiaolong 670 does not support 2K resolution, x15 modem and camera pixel count difference.

In terms of configuration, Xiaolong 670 is the reduced frequency version of Xiaolong 710. In fact, the pins of Xiaolong 710 and Xiaolong 670 are exactly the same. For mobile phone manufacturers, they can have more flexibility in designing products and reduce production costs to the greatest extent.

Compared with Xiaolong 710 and Xiaolong 670, Xiaolong 660 is obviously a previous generation processor. Xiaolong 660 is based on the 14nm process. The CPU adopts the 4 4 kryo 260 core design. The main frequency ranges from 1.95ghz to 2.2GHz. The memory support is the same as that of Xiaolong 710. The GPU is Adreno 512 and the DSP is hexagon 680. The ISP equipped is spectrum 160, which supports up to 16 megapixel dual cameras and 25 megapixel single cameras.

Xiaolong 660 is also equipped with X12 LTE modem. WiFi also supports 2x2 MIMO.

Through comparison, it can be found that Xiaolong 710, Xiaolong 670 and Xiaolong 660 have been greatly upgraded from CPU to GPU, ISP to DSP. According to Qualcomm's official data, the CPU performance of Xiaolong 670 is improved by 15% and the GPU performance is improved by 25% compared with Xiaolong 660.

The improvement of Xiaolong 710 is even greater, with 20% improvement in overall performance, 35% improvement in graphics rendering speed and 25% improvement in web browsing speed. Most importantly, in games and video scenes, the power consumption is reduced by up to 40%.

Spectrum 250 ISP brings top-level photographing features to Xiaolong 710 and Xiaolong 670, including noise reduction, image stabilization and active depth sensing. This means that Xiaolong 710 and Xiaolong 670 can bring consumers a more extreme photography experience. When shooting ultra-high definition video, its power consumption can be reduced by up to 30% compared with the previous generation products.

Of course, whether CPU, GPU, DSP or ISP, these are in the traditional performance upgrade directory, and the positioning gap between 700 series and 600 series is more reflected in AIE, that is, AI computing power.

Artificial intelligence operation

Artificial intelligence has become the hottest technology in the intelligent machine market. From a technical point of view, artificial intelligence is in photography and face recognition. Excellent performance in endurance optimization and other aspects. From a marketing perspective, consumers are also more willing to accept products with artificial intelligence technology. This can be seen from several representative products.

For example, Huawei mate 10 equipped with Kirin 970 processor (customized NPU computing module) has exceeded 10 million units worldwide. Huawei P20 series, also equipped with Kirin 970, has shipped more than 9 million units in four months after listing. The iPhone x, also equipped with a11 bionic artificial intelligence chip, has helped Apple's market value break through the trillion dollar mark.

Consumers' demand for artificial intelligence is clear.

At present, there are three main ways to realize artificial intelligence computing. One is pure algorithm, which uses traditional CPU and other components to carry out high-precision operation. Now it is basically abandoned due to efficiency problems. One is to introduce independent operation modules, such as NPU of Kirin 970. Its advantage lies in higher operation efficiency, but the cost will also be greatly improved, and it is difficult to adapt. The last one is the heterogeneous operation of Xiaolong series.

In short, through multi-core artificial intelligence engine (algorithm), DSP is used to coordinate CPU and GPU to realize efficient AI operation. The advantage of heterogeneous computing is that it can reduce the cost without adding additional hardware. At present, Qualcomm artificial intelligence platform has been upgraded to the third generation. Qualcomm has also developed relevant tools to actively cooperate with AI independent software developers to maximize the daily use experience.

Compared with the Xiaolong 660, the artificial intelligence performance of the Xiaolong 710 with upgraded hardware has been improved by 2 times, and the Xiaolong 670 has also been improved by 1.8 times. Stronger AI performance will help Xiaolong 710 and Xiaolong 670 bring better user experience, including but not limited to stronger privacy protection, near real-time response and system operation reliability. Qualcomm has always emphasized the AI Artificial Intelligence computing capability on the terminal side.

With the improvement of AI performance alone, Xiaolong 710 and Xiaolong 670 have the reason to replace Xiaolong 660.

700 series positioning

Alex katouzian, vice president of Qualcomm mobile platform, once said that Xiaolong 700 series exists for the decentralization of high-end technology. In fact, the 10nm process adopted by Xiaolong 710 and the hexagon 685 DSP are directly inherited from Xiaolong 845. Kyro 360 core, Adreno 616 core and spectrum 250 ISP are all strengthened on the basis of Xiaolong 660.

Xiaolong 710 perfectly realizes the role of connecting the preceding and the following. Its positioning is extremely accurate and directly points to the medium and high-end market.

It can be predicted that with the distribution of Xiaolong 710 and Xiaolong 670, Xiaolong 660 will be eliminated. With stronger AI performance, stronger computing power and faster network connection speed, Xiaolong 710 and Xiaolong 670 can bring a better use experience.

In fact, it is reported that Xiaolong 710, 670 and 660 basically use the same motherboard. For intelligent machine manufacturers, rapid packaging can be realized, and the time cost and chip cost can be saved.

Figure: nut Pro 2S

Thanks to this, a large number of products equipped with Xiaolong 710 have been listed recently, including hammer nut Pro 2S, 360 N7 pro, oppo R17 pro, etc.

summary

Powerful AI performance, faster packaging and higher cost performance. Xiaolong 710 has great advantages from the perspectives of performance, manufacturer and market.

In the future, Xiaolong 710 will become the main player in the medium and high-end chip market. The combination of slightly lower Xiaolong 670 and higher Xiaolong 710 will form a richer product line and provide consumers with more choices. We have reason to believe that Xiaolong 710 will become the new favorite of the mainstream chip market and the new God u in the mouth of consumers.