Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 616, 412, and 212

Today, Qualcomm launched a set of new SoCs, namely the Snapdragon 616, 412, and 212. These are updates to the Snapdragon 615, 410, and 210 respectively.

If you were to guess that these are relatively minor updates, you’d be right. First off, the Snapdragon 616 leaves the 615 mostly unchanged, with the top clockspeed of the little cluster jumping from 1 GHz to 1.2 GHz. However it should be noted that there are iterations of the 615 with a 1.11 GHz little cluster clock as well.

Qualcomm's SoC Refresh Lineup
	Snapdragon 616	Snapdragon 412	Snapdragon 212
Manufacturing Process	28nm LP	28nm LP	28nm LP
CPU	4 x ARM Cortex A53 @ 1.7GHz 4x ARM Cortex A53 @ 1.2GHz	4 x ARM Cortex A53 @ 1.4GHz	4 x ARM Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz
ISA	32/64-bit ARMv8-A	32/64-bit ARMv8-A	32-bit ARMv7
GPU	Adreno 405	Adreno 306	Adreno 304
H.265 Decode	Yes (1080p)	Yes (720p)	Yes (1080p)
Memory Interface	32-bit LPDDR3-800	32-bit LPDDR2/3-600	32-bit LPDDR2/3-533
Integrated Modem	9x25 core, LTE Category 4, DC-HSPA+, DS-DA	9x25 core, LTE Category 4, DC-HSPA+, DS-DA	9x25 core, LTE Category 4, DC-HSPA+, DS-DA
Integrated WiFi	Qualcomm VIVE 802.11ac 1-stream	802.11n 1-stream	802.11n 1-stream
eMMC Interface	4.51	4.51	4.5

Meanwhile the Snapdragon 410 to 412 upgrade is a bit bigger, with the single cluster of A53s going from 1.2 GHz to 1.4 GHz and the memory interface going from a max of 533 MHz to 600 MHz. The Snapdragon 210 to 212 upgrade on the other hand is similar to the 615 to 616 upgrade, with the single cluster of A7s going from 1.1 to 1.3 GHz and are otherwise unchanged.

Overall it’s a bit unfortunate that none of these SoCs have made the move from a traditional polySiON gate oxide to a high-k metal gate process yet. However I suspect that in these lower tiers even the cost of HKMG would dramatically affect competitiveness and price.

Finally, at this point it's unclear when these new variants will begin shipping, but it’s likely that this part is sampling now. Which means that devices with these new SoCs should be available before the end of the year.