The Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 was announced today at the Snapdragon Summit in Maui, Hawaii.
Qualcomm claims this new chip, a 7nm processor manufactured by TSMC, will be three times as fast of the Snapdragon 845 and up to 2x the performance of competing mobile processors such as the HiSilicon Kirin 980 and Apple A12 Bionic.
The Snapdragon 855 will focus on dedicated AI processing for the future of mobile, and computer-vision ISP(imaging signal processor) for even better computational photography.
As for the CPU specifications, the 855 is a 7nm octa-core processor with 8 Kryo 485 cores (4x custom A76-based 1x@2.84, 3x@2.42GHz, 4x custom A55-based @1.8GHz). The GPU is an Adreno 640 with “Snapdragon Elite Gaming Platform”. The included modem is the Snapdragon X24 LTE (up to 2Gbps), with the X50 5G-capable modem as an option.
AI on the Snapdragon 855 is powered by the Hexagon 690 with fourth-generation AI core and new dedicated voice assistant core. The ISP is a Spectra 380 with on-chip computer vision and 4K60 HDR video capture. The 855 supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ for fast wired charging.
Phones with the Snapdragon 855 will be available for purchase in early 2019 or even late 2018.