Qualcomm‘s Snapdragon S4 line of processors has proven to be incredibly popular, so it isn’t much of a surprise that the company has added two new CPUs to the Snapdragon S4 family. Announced today, the MSM8226 and the MSM8626 are bound for China, and offer a number of features that we have a feeling manufacturers will pay attention to. Those manufacturers will have a little bit of a wait ahead of them, though, as these new processors aren’t scheduled to launch until Q2 2013.
The 28nm silicon quad-core chips can boast support for 1080p recording and playback along with support for up to 13-megapixel cameras thanks to the Adreno 305 GPU. Both of them come with multi-SIM support, which includes dual SIM, dual standby and dual SIM, dual active and each can support China’s TD-SCDMA, CDMA, and HSPA+ networks. According to Qualcomm, the WTR2605 radio that makes these chips compatible with those networks is 40% more efficient and an impressive 60% smaller than its predecessors.
At the same time these chips launch, the company will also be delivering Qualcomm Reference Design versions of each. With these chips, developers receive handset development resources, which includes access to hardware and software that has been tested for compatibility with QRD devices. According to Qualcomm, its QRD customers will be “offered everything they need to rapidly deliver differentiated smartphones to the mass market.”
So, Qualcomm continues to push forward, meaning that we’ll expect demand for its Snapdragon S4 line to stay high. There isn’t any specific release information available yet, but with as fast as the technology industry moves, Q2 2013 should be here before we know. Keep it tuned here to Android Community, as we should have more details about these chips soon.
