In the field of smartphone chips, Qualcomm's Snapdragon series is undoubtedly one of the most dazzling.

Since its debut in 2007, the Snapdragon series of chips has become an instant hit in the mobile phone market. With the development of the smartphone industry and the continuous iteration and upgrade of Snapdragon, the Snapdragon series has become a synonym for top-level experience and leading performance over the next decade. Qualcomm now has a multi-level Snapdragon mobile platform across the 8 series, 7 series, 6 series, and 4 series. Among them, the Snapdragon 8 series has set a performance benchmark for flagship smartphones and has become the preferred platform for most Android flagship smartphones.

As a chip enterprise with a strong sense of social responsibility, Qualcomm is not satisfied with bringing flagship performance to flagship phones through flagship chips alone. It is also committed to expanding more advanced features to a wider range of products, bringing a better experience to more consumers. The recently released second-generation Snapdragon 7+ mobile platform fully reflects this business philosophy of Qualcomm. This is also the reason why Hou Mingjuan, the global vice president of Qualcomm, believes that the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ is the most powerful 7 series product in the history of Snapdragon.

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"The strength of the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ is all-round strength," added Ma Xiaomin, senior director of Qualcomm's product marketing.

High-end performance, everything you need

Ma Xiaomin pointed out that the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ chip is composed of a "1+3+4" octa-core architecture with 1 super core, 3 performance cores, and 4 efficiency cores. These cores combined can achieve the best balance between performance and power consumption, thus meeting the various needs of daily mobile phone use. The highest frequency of the super core has reached 2.91GHz, which has also been significantly improved compared to the previous generation. In terms of absolute performance, the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ has increased by up to 50% compared to the first generation. Qualcomm also attaches great importance to energy efficiency design on the second-generation Snapdragon 7+, which also allows the chip's DOU energy efficiency to increase by up to 13% compared to the first generation. In terms of the GPU, the absolute performance of the Adreno GPU used in the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ has doubled compared to the first-generation Snapdragon 7, which is the largest performance improvement in the history of the 7 series chips.

As for the AI performance that everyone is more concerned about, the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ has doubled compared to the previous generation, while also supporting the hardware-level Qualcomm Sensor Hub. It is based on a new low-power AI architecture, which includes a separate low-power AI processor, combined with its own DSP and memory, which can cooperate with external sensors to respond to various voice and audio needs of users in a timely manner. The second-generation Snapdragon 7+ also enhances the gaming and video experience through AI, using trained super-resolution neural networks to greatly improve the resolution of games, and providing the phone with digital zoom capabilities, so that it can maintain good sharpness and clear images in both close-up and long-distance video shooting.

The second-generation Snapdragon 7+ also introduces many features that were only available on the Snapdragon flagship platform, such as some Snapdragon Elite Gaming features including adaptive variable resolution rendering, Adreno Image Motion Engine, and stereo rendering technology, which allows the platform to improve the smoothness and frame rate of the game while reducing GPU load and power consumption. In addition, by supporting the Snapdragon Sound Snapdragon listening technology integrated with Qualcomm aptX, Qualcomm also brings a clear, low-latency, lossless, and stable audio experience to consumers using devices equipped with the second-generation Snapdragon 7+.

In terms of imaging, thanks to the first-time adoption of the 18-bit triple ISP architecture, the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ can not only capture 4096 times more image data than the previous generation; the supported photo pixel is also as high as 200 million, and its overall dynamic range and HDR capabilities have also been greatly improved. In addition, the platform also supports 4K HDR video shooting, achieving a maximum of 3 billion pixels processed per second, coupled with other new features, the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ brings higher playability and shooting fun to users.In addition to the features described above, Qualcomm has also integrated the Snapdragon X62 5G Modem-RF System into the second-generation Snapdragon 7+, enabling the platform to further enhance the maximum downlink rate; this chip also supports for the first time the dual SIM dual standby function of 5G+5G/5G+4G, supports Wi-Fi 6/6E in Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, and supports four-way dual-frequency concurrent operation with 2x2+2x2, bringing excellent processing and connection capabilities; the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ also integrates Snapdragon Secure, including the Trust Management Engine (TME), the Qualcomm Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), the Qualcomm Hypervisor Execution Environment (HEE), and the platform security foundation, providing security protection for the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ similar to a vault.

From the above parameters, we can see that the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ has a very strong competitiveness. According to Lu Weibing, President of Xiaomi Group and General Manager of the Redmi brand, at the launch of the second-generation Snapdragon 7+, the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ is very important for Redmi, especially the Note series. In fact, the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ is a product jointly defined by Redmi and Qualcomm.

"We decided to rebuild the 7 series with the architecture and process of the Snapdragon 8 series! The second-generation Snapdragon 7+ fully inherits the flagship features, and is of the same origin and source as the Snapdragon 8+. It is a revolutionary work in the chip industry and a solution work for the entire terminal industry," said Lu Weibing.

In my view, if this chip can gain more consumer recognition in the future, Qualcomm's upgrade of 5G, Wi-Fi, and other connection technologies on this chip will be indispensable.

Enhanced connection, accelerate commercial use

Unlike other processors, mobile chip processors like Snapdragon need to ensure processing performance, and wireless communication capabilities are also indispensable important components. Especially after entering the 5G era, for terminals including smartphones, in addition to requiring chips to process tasks faster, they also need to have faster and more reliable data exchange capabilities, and low latency has also become an important focus for manufacturers, which is completely different from the original function of mobile phones, which were only used for calls.

In other words, how to ensure the quality of the device's 5G connection has become the top priority in the development of the Snapdragon series by Qualcomm.

The "5G User Network Perception Quality Experience Evaluation Report (2022)" released by the China Telecom Research Institute shows that the overall perception quality of the industry's 5G users is good, and some key scenarios such as high-frequency use scenarios such as indoor areas and underground parking lots, elevators, and other enclosed areas, as well as mobile travel scenarios such as high-speed trains, the coverage and user experience of 5G networks have been improved compared to 2021. However, there are still differences in 5G network perception between scenarios, indoors and outdoors, and between different points. Therefore, how to create a good 5G network experience has become the focus of work for operators and equipment manufacturers.

This is also the reason why Qualcomm has made a significant upgrade to the 5G communication capabilities on its second-generation Snapdragon 7+.Readers familiar with the global development of 5G should know that due to different positioning and specific uses, the 5G deployment process varies greatly in different regions around the world; at the same time, different regions also have slight differences in the arrangement of 5G frequency bands due to different network usage conditions. By integrating the Snapdragon X62 5G modem and RF system, the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ can support the full frequency band of 5G, thereby accelerating the commercial speed of manufacturers' equipment.

According to Ma Xiaomin, the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ is equipped with the Snapdragon X62 5G modem and RF system, supporting the 3GPP Release 16 standard, with the highest peak download rate reaching 4.4Gbps, and also supports the aggregation of Sub-6GHz and 5G millimeter wave, providing good support for various networks, frequency bands, and global bandwidth. This means that no matter where the user is, as long as they are using a mobile phone equipped with the second-generation Snapdragon 7+, they can always maintain connectivity.

In addition, the support for dual SIM dual standby 5G is another highlight of the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ that must be mentioned.

Due to different usage habits, mobile phone users in our country have had the demand for dual SIM dual standby for a long time, which has prompted chip manufacturers and terminal manufacturers to create mobile phones supporting dual SIM dual standby since the 2G era; entering the 5G era, this demand still exists. Moreover, with the continuous expansion of 5G, users are more eager to achieve "dual SIM dual standby dual communication", that is, during a call on any mobile phone card, the other mobile phone card will not be disconnected. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to have a deep understanding and technical accumulation of RF, which is what Qualcomm is good at.

The addition of the 5G dual SIM dual communication function has also further improved the 5G experience for end users.

By supporting the Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 system, the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ also supports WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E, which means that the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ can support the 6GHz frequency band, with the highest rate reaching 3.6Gbps, while still maintaining a very low latency. In addition, the second-generation Snapdragon 7+ also supports four-way dual-frequency concurrent (that is, support for 5Gx5G+2.4Gx2.4G), compared to 1x1+1x1, this design has doubled the WiFi speed of the second-generation Snapdragon 7+, the coverage range has also been doubled, and it still maintains the low latency characteristics, allowing users to get faster response when playing games, and a smoother transmission experience when watching videos.

Perhaps, when many people see the second-generation Snapdragon 7+, they naturally think of the higher-end Snapdragon 8 series mobile platform. Indeed, the flagship has the competitiveness of the flagship, but from Lu Weibing's speech, we can see that we cannot underestimate the strong strength of the second-generation Snapdragon 7+.

"I always believe that the mid-range is not mediocre, but the backbone of the industry." Lu Weibing emphasized, and he further pointed out: "Since the beginning of 2023, the entire smartphone market has been facing the challenge of further shrinking capacity. The more difficult the industry, the more it needs to innovate the product experience. How to break the situation and re-activate the market? Redmi's answer is 'flagship experience super popularization', breaking the rules on the mid-range product line with the largest user base, and promoting performance 'disruptive' upgrade."

The second-generation Snapdragon 7+ was precisely born for this purpose.