Qualcomm is presenting the Snapdragon 778G for the upper middle class at the “5G Summit” in-house conference. The proximity to the Snapdragon 780G is not only due to the name, the features are also very similar. By manufacturing at TSMC instead of Samsung, Qualcomm is getting a second foundry in times of the current chip shortage.
Smartphones with Snapdragon 778G are expected to catch up in the course of the second quarter of this year come the market. Qualcomm named Honor, iQOO, Motorola, Oppo, Realme and Xiaomi as the first buyers. Since the sale to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology, Honor is no longer under the US ban that applies to Huawei and can therefore again purchase chips from companies such as Qualcomm.
Production in N6 at TSMC instead of Samsung
Less than two months after the Snapdragon 780G, the Snapdragon 778G is now targeting a very similar market segment: the upper middle-class smartphone. Although there are definitely differences in some areas, the chip can primarily be seen as the acquisition of a second foundry and thus as a second pillar for Qualcomm in this segment. The Snapdragon 778G is manufactured in N6 at TSMC, while the 780G is manufactured in 5LPE at Samsung. Qualcomm itself sorts the Snapdragon 778G as the successor to the older 768G.
New core design with faster LPDDR5
There are differences in the CPU, which relies on the current Cortex-A78 from ARM. The 1 + 3 + 4 design with prime core is no longer used, instead there is a classic division into 4 + 4 cores. In terms of CPU performance, the Snapdragon 778G should do slightly better than the 780G, which only comes with one core at 2.4 GHz. The Snapdragon 778G also experiences a performance boost from the fact that the memory interface is designed for LPDDR5-3200 instead of LPDDR4X-2133 on the 780G. Qualcomm speaks of 40 percent more CPU performance compared to the Snapdragon 768G with its 1 + 1 + 6 design based on the older Cortex-A76.
With the Adreno 642 L However, the Snapdragon 778G has a slightly weaker GPU on board, which should also deliver 40 percent more power than the Adreno 620 of the 768G. Also included here are selected “Snapdragon Elite Gaming” features such as Variable Rate Shading (VRS) or “Game Quick Touch” for a touch latency that is reduced by up to 20 percent. The Snapdragon 778G also supports games in HDR. Displays can be controlled in up to FHD + with a maximum of 144 Hz.
(Cortex-A78) @ 2.40 GHz
4 × Kryo 670 Silver
(Cortex-A55) @ 1.80 GHz 1 × Kryo 670 Prime
(Cortex-A78) @ 2.40 GHz
3 × Kryo 670 Gold
(Cortex-A78) @ 2.20 GHz
4 × Kryo 670 Silver
(Cortex-A55) @ 1.90 GHz GPU Adreno 642L Adreno 642 Memory LPDDR5 @ 3,200 MHz LPDDR4X @ 2,133 MHz ISP Spectra 570L
Triple 14 Bit ISP
2.0 GP/s
1 × 192 MP photo
3 × 22 MP @ 30 FPS ZSL
1 × 36 MP/1 × 22 MP @ 30 FPS ZSL
1 × 64 MP @ 30 FPS ZSL
10 bit HDR/Rec. 2020 Photo + Video
4K Video + 36 MP Photo
4K Video @ 30 FPS
720p Video @ 240 FPS
HDR10 (+), HLG Spectra 570
Triple 14 Bit ISP
2.5 GP/s
1 × 192 MP photo
3 × 25 MP @ 30 FPS ZSL
1 × 64 MP/1 × 20 MP @ 30 FPS ZSL
1 × 84 MP @ 30 FPS ZSL
10 bit HDR/Rec. 2020 Photo + Video
4K Video + 64 MP Photo
4K Video @ 60 FPS
720p Video @ 480 FPS
HDR10 (+), HLG DSP Hexagon 770
12 TOPS < br> (CPU + GPU + DSP) Hexagon 770
12 TOPS
(CPU + GPU + DSP) Wi-Fi/BT FastConnect 6700 System FastConnect 6900 System Modem Snapdragon X53
(Sub-6 -GHz + mmWave) Snapdragon X53
(Sub-6-GHz)
Image processor processes less data
The Snapdragon 778G also has to give up with the Spectra-570 L Image processor that can process 20 percent less gigapixel/s (2.0 vs. 2.5). This leads to slightly lower resolutions for the supported camera systems. Since this is also a triple ISP, three cameras can again be evaluated simultaneously, for example to process three parallel streams from the front and rear. Qualcomm is also relying again on ArcSoft to enable seamless changes from telephoto to wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle when recording video via the ISP. HDR recordings are supported in up to 4K as with the Snapdragon 780G.
Faster 5G for slower WLAN
There are other differences in connectivity. The Snapdragon 778G also comes with an integrated Snapdragon X53 modem, in addition to the sub-6 GHz spectrum, 5G also supports mmWave. Up to 400 MHz bandwidth can be bundled there via four 100 MHz carriers in order to achieve a maximum of 3.7 Gbit/s in the downlink. In the sub-6 GHz spectrum, as with the Snapdragon 780G, a maximum of 100 MHz bandwidth is provided, although with 4 × 4 MIMO and up to 3.3 Gbit/s this ensures hardly any lower transmission rates.
The more versatile and faster 5G is bought by the Snapdragon 778G with a weaker subsystem for WLAN and Bluetooth. Instead of the FastConnect 6900, a maximum of the 6700 can be connected. Standards such as the brand new Wi-Fi 6E, 8 × 8 MU-MIMO or MU-MIMO for the downlink and uplink are still offered. Ultimately, there are only different top speeds with more streams of 2.9 and 3.6 Gbit/s in favor of the Snapdragon 780G.
ComputerBase has information on this article from Qualcomm at NDA received. The only requirement was the earliest possible publication time.