The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 may get an announcement in Q4 2022 if Qualcomm’s launch history has anything to say. Now if you’re wondering when exactly the official reveal will take place, the chipmaker may have left a massive clue.
Qualcomm could unveil the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 a good two weeks ahead of last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
The Snapdragon Summit is an annual conference where Qualcomm showcases the latest technologies it has been working on, including a chipset that will power future Android flagships. On that occasion, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is expected to be found in premium phones of 2023, and according to the San Diego chipmaker’s events page, the Snapdragon Summit will take place on November 14-17.
Looking at Qualcomm’s history, the flagship mobile SoC is usually announced on the first day of the Snapdragon Summit, meaning the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 could be unveiled on November 14th. Qualcomm’s phone partners like Xiaomi are also expected to attend the conference, where it may offer a preview of its flagship series that will ship with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. In this case, these premium smartphones will probably be called Xiaomi 13 and 13 Pro.
We may also get a preview of the Snapdragon 8cx 3 successor, which is unnamed for now, but previous reports portrayed this SoC as a competitor to the M1. Qualcomm previously said it would use the Nuvia acquisition to boost the performance of its future chipset step up to compete with Apple’s M-series. From what we know about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Qualcomm will likely stick to TSMC’s 4nm architecture to mass produce its next-gen silicon.
TSMC is slated to start mass-producing Apple’s M2 Pro and M2 Max later this year with its cutting-edge 3nm technology, but it’s doubtful Qualcomm will be using this node at least until next year. Luckily, with what we saw with the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will have improved power efficiency and more performance.
It’s also potentially Qualcomm’s first SoC in years to feature an all-new CPU cluster, dropping the “1 + 3 + 4” core configuration and moving to a “1 + 2 + 2 + 3” configuration instead . Whether or not this change will bring significant improvements is unclear, so as always we await the actual results.
More information on this chipset is expected to be available in the coming weeks.
News Source: Qualcomm