Qualcomm comes with entry-level quad-core chips for smartphones

Chip maker Qualcomm has launched two new quad-core-socs announced, as part of the S4 Play line, which the company aims to cheap smartphones and tablets. The soc’s use of the Cortex-A5 design.

The MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q are quadcore variants of the MSM8225 and MSM8625, each with two cores were fitted. Both chips will make use of four Cortex A5 processor cores, which are mainly focused on low power consumption rather than high performance. The A5 design delivers approximately 1,57 dmips/MHz, compared to 2 dmips/MHz for the outdated Cortex A8 design. A Cortex A9 processor core, which in many current smartphones and tablets, delivers about 2.5 dmips/MHz.

The exact clock speed of the quadcores are not known, but the dualcore variants could up to 1GHz driven. The socs, on 45nm manufactured, contain no integrated bluetooth or wi-fi radios; Qualcomm recommends manufacturers to to are Atheros AR6005 and WCN2243 chips to use.

The processor cores are linked to an Adreno 203 gpu and have compared their dualcore brothers support for lpddr2 memory, more memory bandwidth should yield. Thanks to the extra bandwidth allows the soc’s screens with resolutions up to 1280×720 pixels to drive, and in addition video in the same resolution, recording and playback. The MSM8625Q is intended for the American market, and therefore has support for both umts and cdma networks. The MSM8225Q supports only umts.

Qualcomm is aiming for with the new chips to his own words, on entry level smartphones. At the end of this year, the first samples to manufacturers shipped in the first quarter of 2013, the first smartphones with the new quadcores in the shops.