Qualcomm To Launch Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Chip Soon

Due to the lower demand for smartphones, Qualcomm could launch its latest high-end SoC earlier this year than usual. According to a report from China, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 should be launched in the fall.

As the Chinese magazine ITHome reports, according to informed sources, Qualcomm wants to bring forward the launch of its latest flagship processor for high-end smartphones in a few weeks this year. Currently, the company is reportedly aiming for the launch as early as October. Specifically, the presentation is said to be taking place at the end of October, after the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

was presented for the first time last year in mid-November and thus around two weeks before the usual date at the end of December. The fact that Qualcomm has already started conducting internal tests with the new chip also speaks for a slightly earlier launch.

Supposedly five instead of four high-end cores

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is currently being developed under the codename “Lanai” and has the internal model number SM8650. According to rumors, Qualcomm wants to use a different cluster configuration of the CPU cores for the new chip, so that in the future, in addition to a single premium core, five more high-end and only three power-saving cores could be used.

Which architectures will then be used in each case is still uncertain given the distribution of the computing cores of the current Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. With the current in top smartphones like the Galaxy S23 series Qualcomm had switched to a new cluster design for the chip installed by Samsung, in which, in addition to the one premium core, there were also two pairs of high-end cores based on the ARM Cortex-A710 and -A715 architectures and three low- End cores are integrated.

It remains to be seen to what extent the addition of another high-end core will ultimately result in performance improvements. Qualcomm is said to be initially planning to switch to the latest variant of 4nm production at TSMC, which would improve energy efficiency by around 20 percent.

A significant leap in performance is only expected with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, which will probably appear in 2024 with new custom CPU cores based on the customized architectures developed by the startup Nuvia. Acquired by Qualcomm, Nuvia consists of a group of CPU designers who once developed the now very successful ARM cores of the Apple A and M CPUs for Apple.