Today, Qualcomm launched a set of new SoCs, namely the Snapdragon 616, 412, and 212. These are updates to the Snapdragon 615, 410, and 210 respectively.

If you were to guess that these are relatively minor updates, you’d be right. First off, the Snapdragon 616 leaves the 615 mostly unchanged, with the top clockspeed of the little cluster jumping from 1 GHz to 1.2 GHz. However it should be noted that there are iterations of the 615 with a 1.11 GHz little cluster clock as well.

Qualcomm's SoC Refresh Lineup Snapdragon 616 Snapdragon 412 Snapdragon 212 Manufacturing Process 28nm LP 28nm LP 28nm LP CPU 4 x ARM Cortex A53 @ 1.7GHz

4x ARM Cortex A53 @ 1.2GHz 4 x ARM Cortex A53 @ 1.4GHz 4 x ARM Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz ISA 32/64-bit ARMv8-A 32/64-bit ARMv8-A 32-bit ARMv7 GPU Adreno 405 Adreno 306 Adreno 304 H.265 Decode Yes (1080p) Yes (720p) Yes (1080p) Memory Interface 32-bit LPDDR3-800 32-bit LPDDR2/3-600 32-bit LPDDR2/3-533 Integrated Modem 9x25 core, LTE Category 4, DC-HSPA+, DS-DA 9x25 core, LTE Category 4, DC-HSPA+, DS-DA 9x25 core, LTE Category 4, DC-HSPA+, DS-DA Integrated WiFi Qualcomm VIVE 802.11ac 1-stream 802.11n 1-stream 802.11n 1-stream eMMC Interface 4.51 4.51 4.5

Meanwhile the Snapdragon 410 to 412 upgrade is a bit bigger, with the single cluster of A53s going from 1.2 GHz to 1.4 GHz and the memory interface going from a max of 533 MHz to 600 MHz. The Snapdragon 210 to 212 upgrade on the other hand is similar to the 615 to 616 upgrade, with the single cluster of A7s going from 1.1 to 1.3 GHz and are otherwise unchanged.

Overall it’s a bit unfortunate that none of these SoCs have made the move from a traditional polySiON gate oxide to a high-k metal gate process yet. However I suspect that in these lower tiers even the cost of HKMG would dramatically affect competitiveness and price.

Finally, at this point it's unclear when these new variants will begin shipping, but it’s likely that this part is sampling now. Which means that devices with these new SoCs should be available before the end of the year.