Li Gen from Hawaii
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

Just now, the most powerful AI chip of 2018 was released!

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 is 3 times faster than the previous generation flagship Snapdragon 845, and 1 time faster than Huawei Kirin 980 and Apple A12.

In addition to stronger AI performance, it also comes standard with AI camera and under-screen fingerprint recognition solutions.

It will also be the world's first 5G commercial chip.

In the first half of 2019, smartphones equipped with this most powerful AI chip will be released.

Snapdragon 855 chip

At the Snapdragon Technology Summit, Snapdragon 855 made its debut as “One more thing”.

There are 3 major features in total:

First of all, this is Qualcomm's first 7nm process chip, which is smaller in size and has higher performance.

Secondly, this is also Qualcomm’s first flagship chip that supports 5G, which will officially push smartphones into the 5G era.

Finally, the most important thing is AI.

How does Qualcomm define Snapdragon 855?

Officials said that this is "the world's first commercial mobile platform that fully supports multi-gigabit 5G, industry-leading artificial intelligence (AI) and immersive extended reality (XR)."

Among them, after being equipped with the latest generation of AIE engine, the performance will be 3 times higher than the previous generation flagship Snapdragon 845, and 2 times stronger than Huawei 980 and Apple A12.

Of course, the Snapdragon 855 event did not explicitly mention Huawei and Apple, the two old enemies, but it couldn't be more obvious.

The original words are: Snapdragon 855 2X performance of the 7 nm processor released monthes before, and the one before that you know.

In addition, Snapdragon 855 has two other new capabilities.

• First, the 3D acoustic wave sensing solution, also known as the under-screen fingerprint solution, can penetrate different types of stains and accurately identify fingerprints, which also means that the under-screen fingerprint will become the new standard for Android flagships.

• Second, AI camera solution. After integrating the world's first computer vision (CV) ISP, Snapdragon 855 can use AI vision capabilities to identify the scene the user is shooting in real time based on the camera, and then automatically adjust the parameters to take better photos.

For gamers, the Elite Gaming provided by Snapdragon 855 will also bring a new experience in mobile gaming.

In short, within the next 7 months, Chinese Android users should be able to experience the 5G+AI experience brought by Snapdragon 855.

More specific Snapdragon 855 parameters will be announced at the summit tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

△ Image via PConline

Let’s review the performance parameters of Huawei Kirin 980 and Apple A12.

Huawei Kirin 980:

• Process technology: From 10nm to 7nm, the speed has been improved by 10%, the energy efficiency has been improved by 40%, and the density of logic circuits has been increased by 1.6 times;

• CPU: From Cortex-A73 to Cortex-A76, performance increased by 75% and energy efficiency increased by 58%.

• GPU: From Mali-G72-based design to Mali-G76-based design, performance increased by 46% and energy efficiency increased by 178%.

• NPU: From single NPU to dual NPU, image recognition speed is 2.2 times faster than before

• Network speed: From 1.2Gbps Cat.17 to 1.4Gbps Cat.21, a 16% increase

• Max. Lpddr4: From 1866MHz to 2133MHz, bandwidth increased by 20% and latency decreased by 22%.

Apple A12:

• The A12 has a six-core CPU, which includes two "performance" cores and four "efficiency" cores. Compared with the A11, the A12 is 15% faster and uses 40% less power;

• The A12 also has a quad-core GPU, which is 50% faster than the A11.

• Next-generation Neural Engine, including an octa-core machine learning processor that can process 5 trillion operations per second, enabling real-time machine learning;

• It has a built-in intelligent computing system that automatically determines whether the program runs on the CPU, GPU, neural engine, or a combination of the three.

So we’ll know how the Snapdragon 855 performs by running a test tomorrow.

Snapdragon New Engine: 5G+AI

Of course, the main theme of this Snapdragon Technology Summit is 5G+AI.

At the beginning, Qualcomm President Cristiano Ammo took the stage and talked about the "next decade".

Because in Qualcomm's view, a new technological era has arrived.

This is 5G.

What can 5G bring? Faster network connection speed, more powerful computing performance, more common machine learning and artificial intelligence terminal applications, and more intelligent interconnection of all things anytime and anywhere.

With the help of 5G, not only will smartphones usher in major changes, but more industries will also usher in new opportunities.

Industries such as medical care, education, and autonomous driving can all be connected and accelerated in the 5G wave, and the terminals and edges in between can also use machine learning and AI, bringing technological change into a new era.

Perhaps you are also curious, is there a more intuitive 5G experience?

The president of Qualcomm used 4G as a comparison on the spot and introduced that 5G will have huge improvements in speed, latency, connection density, energy efficiency and spectrum efficiency.

What is the exact value? Cristiano Ammo left it a mystery.

But according to previous industry analysis and predictions, the improvement over 4G is at least tens to hundreds of times, and after basic testing by US operators, the conclusion is also: an exponential improvement.

5G will bring low latency and multi-gigahertz network transmission, which is like a very large water pipe that can provide fast network coverage and transmission capabilities.

Moreover, the obstruction caused by trees and tall buildings will have less impact, and the network speed will be less affected than 4G.

It is worth mentioning that the new 5G technology will also use the millimeter wave frequency band , which has a wider bandwidth and is less affected by obstructions, and can bring faster network connections and lower latency experience.

In addition, compared with 4G, 5G has another obvious feature: it will occur simultaneously around the world.

When 4G was launched, it started in the United States, and then the infrastructure and network coverage spread to other parts of the world.

But when it comes to 5G, China and other countries have been involved from the very beginning. Now the basic debugging is ready, and 5G only needs commercial use.

And the time is also clear: the first half of 2019.

One more thing

This is the second consecutive year that Qualcomm has held the Snapdragon Technology Summit in Hawaii.

But this time there was another little surprise. David lge, Governor of Hawaii, came to the scene to deliver a speech in person.

He said Hawaii is also learning about new technologies and embracing new trends. As an engineer, he also knows the innovations that 5G+AI will bring in telemedicine, education and other areas.

In short, Hawaii embraces and welcomes new technologies.

He also stated that Hawaii is also happy to provide support for the application of new technologies, such as autonomous driving testing.

So, if you’re part of a self-driving car company, and if you love your job, now’s the time to forward this message to your CEO.

Hawaii is a bit of a challenge, after all, you have to face the sea of ​​stars every day^_^