Qualcomm makes two new additions to Snapdragon S4 class of mobile processors

SAN DIEGO, USA: Qualcomm Inc. announced two additions to its Snapdragon S4 class of mobile processors: the MSM8625 and the MSM8225 chipsets. Both chipsets provide dual core CPUs operating up to 1 GHz, Qualcomm's Adreno 203 GPU and an integrated 3G modem.

The MSM8625 and MSM8225 chipsets are designed to be hardware and software compatible with the MSM7x27A and MSM7x25A family of chipsets, giving device manufacturers the ability to seamlessly migrate their existing Snapdragon S1-based designs to S4 dual core-based designs. This capability is particularly useful for device manufacturers to efficiently expand their smartphone product lines with more advanced and more capable 3G smartphone products.

To further simplify and improve time-to-launch of cost effective 3G solutions for device manufacturers, Qualcomm also announced the third-generation of its Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) ecosystem program to enable third party device manufacturers to develop differentiated high volume smartphones with lower development costs and faster time to market.

The QRD ecosystem program includes a comprehensive set of software and hardware components that allows third party hardware and software vendors to have their products pre-tested and optimized for the QRD development platform. A pre-tested and optimized platform gives device manufacturers a development platform with the hardware components (memory, sensors, touch panels, cameras, displays, RF, etc.) and software applications and features (browsers, map/navigation, mail, music, instant messaging, fonts and languages, etc.) needed for basic smartphone functionality already in place. This allows device manufacturers to focus their engineering resources on developing value-added features that will help make their high-volume smartphone stand out from the competition.

The QRD ecosystem program is designed to help device manufacturers developing products for regions whose networks are evolving from 2G to 3G and high volume smartphones are becoming increasingly popular.

The MSM8625 and MSM8225 chipsets will be available on Qualcomm's third generation QRD development platform in the first half of 2012, in addition to being available as standalone chipsets. QRD development platforms based on both the MSM7x27A and MSM7x25A chipsets are currently available. Qualcomm has shipped over 100 million MSM7225 and MSM7227 chipsets, and smartphones based on these chipsets are operating on multiple carrier networks worldwide.

"Smartphones present a large business opportunity for many of our customers, which is why we have created the QRD ecosystem program to assist them with developing compelling product designs with competitive differentiation," said Cristiano Amon, senior VP of product management at Qualcomm. "The program combines all the elements our customers need to get a new smartphone design to launch quickly and cost effectively, from carrier-ready hardware and software to local technical support resources."

"As Snapdragon processors power many of today's most popular smartphones, we are working to port a variety of our core applications to the various QRD platforms," said Chengmin Liu, senior executive VP, Tencent, China's largest integrated internet services provider. "This will offer our customers a strong processing solution to power our applications for future smartphone designs."