HTCG 15 mobile phone photography

It is generally said in history that 2007 is the beginning of the mobile era, because two things happened in that year that profoundly influenced the development of mankind: in early 2007, Apple released its ancestor iPhone in the same year165438+1October, and Qualcomm released the first generation of Snapdragon chips. They have become the boundary markers that divide the PC and mobile era, and the prelude of the new era is slowly opened.

"Qualcomm Snapdragon" is a name that goes down in history. It is the biggest contributor in the mobile era, or it may not be one of them. Qualcomm Snapdragon runs through the development history of the entire Android camp. All the iconic Android flagships have a "Snapdragon Core".

Qualcomm Snapdragon chips are common to all Android flagships today. Qualcomm's advantages in technology and experience are like an insurmountable gap. It divides Android mobile platforms into two types, one is called Snapdragon, and the other is called Other.

"prehistoric period"

The story begins with the birth of the mobile phone. Mobile network has experienced the evolution from frequency division multiplexing of NMT and AMPS to GSM and CDMA, and then to 3G/4G/5G. Mobile devices have also experienced the transition from "mobile phones" to non-smart phones and then to smart phones.

Throughout these years, the old saying that "buying a mobile phone is buying a SoC" still applies. SoC is the core component, including CPU, GPU, ISP, modem, etc. Modem makes mobile phones "always connected and always online", while CPU and mobile operating system enable smart phones to run various applications, which together constitute the cornerstone of the mobile era.

Before the embryonic form of modern smart phone concept was formed, Qualcomm had already begun to lay out. Because in the face of a new field that no one has ever explored, Qualcomm "can only" do all the research by himself:

1.In 2005, Qualcomm's first independent CPU architecture "Scorpion" was released, which is the predecessor of the world-famous Krait architecture.

2. In 2006, the first SoC system in Qualcomm was released, and the HexagonDSP that continues to this day was also released at this time;

3. In 2007, Snapdragon series chips were released. At this time, it has been 1 year since the original Android system was released.

Since then, during the period of 15, new processes, new CPU, GPU and modem appeared in Qualcomm almost every year. Snapdragon became the origin of everything and witnessed the exponential explosion of mobile SoC performance.

Snapdragon S 1-S4 series: the wild age from 2007 to 20 1 1

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1.MSM7225/7625 was born in the era of mobile SoC without GPU, and Qualcomm brought the support of 3G network, but that was two years later in 2009, the first year of 3G in China.

2.QSD8250/8650, from the beginning, Snapdragon has been the flagship royal, and the CPU and GPU are independent architectures, which is where the most powerful GPUAdreno series of Android started. Their huge user base has also created the glory of the first generation of "King of Brush Machine" HTCHD2;

3. Snapdragon S2 series includes MSM7230/7630, APQ8055 and MSM8255/8655. In this generation, the predecessor of Snapdragon modem "Gobi Series" came out, which is the first modem supporting both 3G and LTE. And that year is 20 1 1 year;

4.20 10 Snapdragon S3 series is the shortest generation, but MSM8260/8660 and APQ8060 among them adopt the dual-core CPU architecture pioneered by Qualcomm, and then the Android camp began to maintain the core competition for several years. If SoC models are not easy to recall, it is estimated that HP TouchPad, Samsung GalaxySIILTE, HTCEvo3D, LGOptimusLTE, and the first-generation Xiaomi mobile phone equipped with Snapdragon S3 can recall many people.

5. Snapdragon S4 is the largest product line, which is subdivided into four sub-series: Play, Plus, pro and Prime. At this time, a 4-core CPU appeared, Krait architecture replaced Scorpion architecture, and Scorpion architecture already had 2MB L2 cache at 20 12. MotoX, LGOptimusG, Prince Nexus4 and Xiaomi 2 equipped with Snapdragon s4 have become unforgettable classics for countless gamers.

Xiaolong 800 series: towards 8 cores and 64 bits

In 20 13, Qualcomm introduced a new naming and division scheme, including the four-level positioning of Snapdragon 200/400/600/800:

1. The original Xiaolong 800 was divided into APQ/MSM series according to whether there was a modem, including some products such as 8074/8274/8674. At this time, there is already LPDDR3 memory, supported by eMMC5.0, and then QuickCharge2.0 unified the fast charging market. At that time, a large number of well-known technical specifications were finalized;

2. After that, Snapdragon 80 1 and Snapdragon 805 continuously improved their technology and frequency. Snapdragon 805 set an incredible record of ultra-high speed of 2.7GHz, which was not broken by Snapdragon 845 until 20 18. Its memory bandwidth has reached 25.6GB/s, which is ready for the future 4K screen. At the same time, the third generation GobiLTE modem joined the support of LTE-Advanced(4G+) and Netcom, which gradually ended the history that domestic consumers needed to choose models according to operators, and laid the hardware foundation for the later unified standards.

Snapdragon 8 10/808 20 14 years, the number of cores increased to 6 cores and 8 cores respectively, becoming the first product in the Android camp to enter the 64-bit era. At that time, HexagonV56DSP and SpectraISP already supported 55-megapixel cameras. It was also at this time that Qualcomm introduced the naming of X-series LTE modems in Snapdragon, and the speed reached LTECat.9(450Mbps) in the same year. Its specifications are so advanced that domestic operators never ran out before the arrival of 5G.

Xiaolong 820 to Snapdragon 855: Isomerization and Multi-platform Development

From this period, Qualcomm expanded Snapdragon's position as a "mobile platform" and began to try heterogeneous computing platforms.

Xiaolong 835 architecture diagram =

At the beginning of 1.20 16, the third-generation Kryo architecture of Xiaolong 820 is the unique 2+2 giant core route of Android camp, and the heterogeneous AI architecture of "CPU+GPU+DSP" is introduced. In the same year, Spectra 180ISP and Hexagon680DSP were born, and the exaggerated throughput laid a good hardware foundation for later computational photography.

Xiaolong 835 set a new record for the energy efficiency ratio of the flagship SoC on February 2017, making the battery life of the flagship of the Android camp surpass the iPhone for the first time. At that time, the X 16LTE modem had entered the 1000Mbps mark. This generation introduced a large number of new attributes such as machine learning and VR, and began to expand into the notebook field, and QC4/QC4+ fast charging was also born at this time. The leading position of Xiaolong 835 also makes the models such as Xiaomi 6 and GalaxyS8 equipped with it extremely "longevity";

3. As the flagship standard of 20 18, Snapdragon 845 has reached 5.3 billion transistors, the main frequency of Kryo385Gold architecture has reached 2.8GHz, the performance of Adreno630 has reached 737GFLOPS, and Spectra280ISP can support 65438+92 million pixel cameras at most. This generation also launched Qualcomm's own aptXHD Bluetooth standard;

4. On the 20 19 Snapdragon 855, Qualcomm used the architecture of 1+3+4 on the CPU for the first time, and the GPU performance exceeded the 1000GFLOPS mark. At this time, the mobile game became popular. Snapdragon 845 launched the SnapdragonEliteGaming solution, which began to provide the overall game experience and supported a series of technologies such as PBR physical rendering.

"Modern" Snapdragon: Still synonymous with the flagship.

1. Then the familiar Snapdragon 865. As the flagship in 2020, its specifications are still mainstream. The number of transistors in Snapdragon 865 has reached 654.38+003 billion, and the architecture of Kryo585 based on A77 has reached a new height in IPC. Adreno650 has improved the frequency in Snapdragon 865+ and Snapdragon 870 with its superior energy efficiency ratio, and the performance of FP32 has also soared from 1200GFLOPS to 1370GFLOPS.

I don't need to say anything about my old friend Snapdragon. The flagship core is 202 1, and the CPU part has a super-large core X 1, 4mb three-level cache, which improves CPU performance by 25% and GPU performance by 35%. It brought VRS variable color rendering technology to the mobile terminal, and the performance of the sixth generation AI engine soared by 50% to 26TOPS. Integrated X605G modem, supporting QC5 fast charging of 100W level.

At the end of 20021,Qualcomm started a brand-new naming method. The rumored Snapdragon 895 finally appeared as the "New Generation Snapdragon 8", and AdrenoGPU no longer uses digital suffixes.

The new Snapdragon 8 brings the biggest CPU architecture innovation in recent years. Very large core, large core and small core are all updated to the Armv9 instruction set, and the main frequency of X2 very large core is 2.995GHz, 6MBL3 cache and 4 MSLC cache. What is even more frightening is that the GPU performance of this generation has soared by more than 50%, replacing GPU performance into another dimension.

Love letter to gamers: SnapdragonEliteGaming

Looking back at Snapdragon now, it has been a computing platform extending to many fields, such as tablets, PCs, XR devices, wearables, Internet of Things, automobiles and so on.

After years of development, the sub-modules such as games, audio, sound and connection that users are most concerned about have been developed and expanded, and different technology matrices such as SnapdragonEliteGaming, SnapdragonSound, SnapdragonSight and SnapdragonConnect have been born, which together constitute the important core of Qualcomm Snapdragon flagship experience.

Faced with the crazy growth of game demand, Qualcomm introduced a system-level game experience solution, SnapdragonEliteGaming, in the era of 855 in Snapdragon, which deeply integrated and optimized the performance, touch, audio and connection of the powerful AdrenoGPU.

The first generation of Snapdragon 855 SnapdragonEliteGaming introduced the technology based on physical rendering (PBR) in the end tour, which greatly improved the lighting effect and texture, and made it show the picture effect that really approached the end tour in the Baking Machine Game, which emphasized the GPU more than the original god.

The mixed call of CPU, GPU and AI engine, technical features such as aptXAdaptive and QualcommAqstic, Vulkan 1. 1 support, 4KTVOut, and anti-cheating extension program were introduced at this time.

The second generation of SnapdragonEliteGaming on Snapdragon 865 has greatly improved the frame rate and HDR effect, bringing high frame rate support of 90/ 120/ 144FPS, fast mixing technology of True 10-bitHDR and end-game forward rendering technology, which further improved the particle rendering effect.

A year later, the third generation of SnapdragonEliteGaming brought another end-game function-real-time variable resolution rendering technology (VRS) to Snapdragon 888, which can mix and color the non-visual focus content, greatly improving the energy efficiency ratio without sacrificing the image quality. In addition, there are many functions such as GameQuickTouch to reduce touch delay.

On the new generation of Snapdragon 8, the fourth generation of SnapdragonEliteGaming arrived as scheduled. In more than 50 optimizations, including upgrading VRS to VRSPro, developers can control their own rendering resolution based on the screen position, and support stereoscopic rendering technology with the same end-game level. At this time, SnapdragonEliteGaming can assign audio tasks to HexagonDSP, and has already supported spatial audio.

In addition, Qualcomm also released the SnapdragonGameToolkit, which allows developers to make better use of previous game achievements and sample codes.

SnapdragonSound, SnapdragonSight and SnapdragonConnect, there are no other branches.

Besides games, Qualcomm has many technical features, such as sound, video, connection and so on.

At the beginning of 20021,Qualcomm released the brand of "SnapdragonSound Changting", hoping to integrate a series of audio software and hardware technologies to provide a stronger wireless audio experience. Contrary to the stereotype that Bluetooth has no sound quality, QualcommAqsticDAC in SnapdragonSound can support PCM format and DSD format up to 32 bits and 384kHz.

With the introduction of aptXLossless technology, aptXAdaptive can adjust the transmission rate from 140Kbps to 1Mbps according to the environment, realize the highest 24-bit 96kHz HD audio transmission and the lowest 89 ms delay, and support the lossless sound quality of 16-bit 44. 1kHzCD. In addition, Qualcomm active noise reduction (ANC) technology, aptXVoice ultra-wideband voice and other behind-the-scenes technologies are actually part of SnapdragonSound.

In addition, with the introduction of LEAudio function, the new generation Snapdragon 8 can realize the functions of broadcast audio, stereo audio recording and synchronous transmission of game voice.

In the photography part that manufacturers compete for, SnapdragonSight is a newly divided imaging technology solution. On the new Snapdragon 8, the first 18bitISP on the mobile terminal is a part of SnapdragonSight. The former can process an astonishing 3.2 billion pixels per second, and can take 200 million pixel photos at a time or three 36 million pixel photos at the same time, which greatly improves the imaging speed, and is also the core hardware foundation of multi-frame synthesis, making its super night shooting mode violently upgraded from the previous generation's 5-frame stack to the 30-frame stack.

As for video, New Snapdragon is the first mobile platform to support 8KHDR video shooting. The video specification of 1 100 million color HDR 10+ may completely overflow in 5 or 6 years. But the most interesting thing is that it must be a new low-power ISP, which can be online all day and continue to provide various AI support such as face detection.

Finally, the connection part of SnapdragonConnect is Qualcomm's home. X655G modem on the new Snapdragon 8 is the first 5G solution in the world that conforms to the specifications of 3gpp pre lease 16. The downlink peak speed reaches 10Gbps, and the uplink peak speed reaches 3Gbps, which is faster than many 5G products.

The FastConnect series is an independent connection subsystem since Snapdragon 865. It supports Bluetooth 5. 1, Wi-Fi6 and 60GHzWi-Fi( 10Gbps), even the then FastConnect6800. The FastConnect6900 on the new generation Snapdragon 8 (the same generation as FastConnect6700) not only supports Bluetooth 5.2, but also supports Wi-Fi6E, and the speed is directly capped at 3.6Gbps.

Summary: Invincibility is the loneliest.

In the latest statistics of patent quality and patent scale of semiconductor enterprises, Qualcomm has become a pole of the semiconductor industry with its huge technical reserves.

Snapdragon Mobile Platform has been holding the script of Aotian Long since its birth. Two years before the iPhone was released, there was a self-developed CPU architecture, and then there were Scorpion, Krait and Kryo architectures. And GPUs and modems go even further. AdrenoGPU has always been the strongest in Android, and Snapdragon X-series modems have never been threatened, which tirelessly refreshed the speed of each node in the 4G and 5G era.

The seven founders of Qualcomm, the third from the right is Dr. Erwin Jacob.

Qualcomm's unique business model makes it a leader in technology. Looking back at the history of Snapdragon series, we will find that it often makes hardware functions that are several years ahead, and the "competition" with other friends is never at the same level.

Elvin Jacobs, the founder of Qualcomm, recalled the experience of founding Qualcomm, saying, "At that time, we had no business plan. In the first six months, we came up with many ideas to keep us busy until now. " Snapdragon's strength may have been established since the founding of Qualcomm.

(The content of this article is reproduced from Lei Feng. com. com)