Showing posts with label socs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label socs. Show all posts
Thursday, September 28, 2017
The Snapdragon 600 series of SoCs
The Snapdragon 600 series of SoCs
In my eyes, the most interesting and dynamic section of the mobile market is the mid range. These are largely phones priced approximately between �130 and �250 and generally offer a specification that is more than acceptable for most users.
While there are multiple vendors offering SoCs in this price bracket, the largest is, of course, Qualcomm. In this post I will outline the core components of the 600 series SoCs and provide a look up table for the currently active model numbers.
Snapdragon 600 series Overview
Qualcomm offers its Snapdragon 600 series of SoCs to the mid range, with the series fitting between the entry level 400 series (Quad core A53s) and high end 800 series (6-8 core ARM or Quad core Kryo).
Unlike the 400 and 800 series, the performance spread through the 600 range is quite substantial, which once again makes it the most interesting of the series for me.
Before we get to the SoCs, it is worth looking at the cores that are contained within them.
Big and Little ARM Cores
ARM Cortex A53
The A53 is a little ARM core, optimised for power efficiency over performance.
ARM Cortex A72
The A72 is a big ARM core, optimised for performance. A72 offers around 50% more performance than A53 at the same frequency.
The A72 is the successor to the A57, as found in the 2015 Snapdragon flagships the 810 and 808. It offers both a performance improvement (around 20%) over the A57, as well as a notable reduction in power consumption (around 15%). The power reduction in particular was a welcome enhancement after the overheating issues that plagued flagship Snapdragon 810 phones throughout 2015.
GPU cores
The following GPU cores are found within Snapdragon 600 series SoCs:
Adreno 405
Qualcomms entry level GPU in the 600 series
Adreno 506
I have not managed locate benchmark scores for the Adreno 506, as found in devices running the Snapdragon 625 such as the Samsung Galaxy C7 (which, as of the time of writing, has not been released). It goes without saying performance will be somewhere between the 405 and 510.
Adreno 510
In my tests, the Adreno 510 in the Snapdragon 650 offers around 3 times the performance of the Adreno 405
Current Snapdragon 600 series members
| Model | Process | Cluster 1 | Cluster 2 | GPU |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 615 | 28nm LP | 4 x 1.7Ghz A53 | 4 x 1.0Ghz A53 | Adreno 405 |
| 616 | 28nm LP | 4 x 1.7Ghz A53 | 4 x 1.2Ghz A53 | Adreno 405 |
| 617 | 28nm LP | 4 x 1.5Ghz A53 | 4 x 1.2Ghz A53 | Adreno 405 |
| 625 | 14nm | 4 x 2.0Ghz A53 | 4 x 2.0Ghz A53 | Adreno 506 |
| 650 | 28nm HPm | 2 x 1.8Ghz A72 | 4 x 1.4Ghz A53 | Adreno 510 |
| 652 | 28nm HPm | 4 x 1.8Ghz A72 | 4 x 1.4Ghz A53 | Adreno 510 |
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Thursday, September 7, 2017
The Rise of Mediatek SoCs
The Rise of Mediatek SoCs
Until 2015, Mediateks SoCs were targeted firmly at the entry level market, largely in Asia, due to their relatively weak performance and lack of LTE support. At this time they also had a rather bad reputation for poor GPS performance, which did them no favours!
I would argue that their first noteworthy SoC was the MT6752 Octa-core A53 SoC, featuring LTE support and offering great value for money. This was released towards the end of 2014 and has proved to be a very popular choice in mid range Chinese handsets throughout 2015.
The more recent iterations of the MT67xx line have been rebranded as Helio, with the X series being targeted at the high / upper mid range and the P series targeted at the mid range.
Helio X10
Announced Q4 2014, first handset June 2015
8 Core, 28nm
8 x 2.2Ghz A53
PowerVR G6200 @ 700Mhz
The Helio X10, as found in the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 and later the Redmi Note 3, offered excellent performance in very competitively priced handsets throughout the second half of 2015.
Announced May 2015, first handset expected April 2016
10 core, 20nm
2 x 2.5Ghz A72 + 4 x 2Ghz A53 + 4 x 1.4Ghz A53
Mali T880 MP4 @ 700Mhz
The Helio X20 was the first deca-core SoC to be announced, with the idea being that there would be three power clusters - low clocked A53s for power saving, high clocked A53s for standard app usage and a pair of A72s for high-end performance & gaming. While not quite up to the performance of the Exynos 8890 & Snapdragon 820 found in the latest top-tier phones, it will still perform better than the 2015 flagships.
Announced in May 2015, at the time of writing no phones have shipped with this SoC, although the first phones are expected to launch around April (e.g. Meizu MX6 & Pro 5 Mini).
Due to be Announced H1 2016
10 core, 16nm
4 x 2.5GHz A72 + 2 x 2GHz A72 + 2 x 1.5GHz A53 + 2 x 1GHz A35
Mali T880 MP4 @ 900Mhz?
The Helio X30 has yet to be officially announced, but is expected to offer an even more granular approach, with 2xA35s for very low power usage (these are ARMs most efficient ARMV8 cores), 2 x A53s for standard UI operations, 2 x A72 for performance and 4xA72s for very high performance.
What is interesting about Mediateks approach is that it is quite the opposite of Qualcomm & their Snapdragon SoCs with low core count, high IPC custom ARM cores, and even Samsung with their new M1 performance cores. Mediatek are solely using generic ARM cores, but using the full core range to offer up very high efficiency as well as high performance.
Android, in particular, offers surprisingly good multi-threading as can be seen in this rather interesting article on Anandtech. While Mediatek simply dont have the resources or expertise to create their own custom cores at this time, their approach is both interesting and successful.
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