Qualcomm today announced the Snapdragon 835 processor, a collaborative effort with Samsung, and Quick Charge 4.0 for even faster battery charging.
The Snapdragon 835 is now Qualcomm’s top-of-the-line chip. Qualcomm decided to rely on Samsung’s 10nm FinFET process technology for the chip, which introduces a number of performance upgrades over Samsung’s 14nm process.
For example, it allows processors to be up to 30% smaller while also improving speeds by 27% or dropping power consumption by 40%. The reduced footprint and boosted speed/power efficiency gives hardware makers more flexibility to create long-lasting and powerful devices. The Snapdragon 835 is already in development and Qualcomm expects to see it in flagship designs during the first half of 2017.
Quick Charge 4.0 was created with the Snapdragon 835 in mind. Critically, Quick Charge 4.0 officially supports the USB-C port that’s becoming more widely available on today’s high-end devices, as well as USB-PD (Power Delivery). Qualcomm said its goal in developing the technology was to deliver faster charges more efficiently.
Quick Charge 4.0 was engineered to push five or more hours of use into a battery with only five minutes of charging. It relies on what Qualcomm calls Dual Charge, a parallel charging technique, to deliver 20% quicker charging with a 30% higher efficiency rating when compared to Quick Charge 3.0.
Qualcomm expects Quick Charge 4.0 to reach devices alongside the Snapdragon 835 during the first half of 2017.
