Qualcomm brings Snapdragon S4 processors

Qualcomm has announced two additions to its Snapdragon S4 class of mobile processors-- the MSM8625 and the MSM8225 chipsets.
Both chipsets provide dual core CPUs operating up to 1 GHz, Qualcomm's Adreno 203 GPU and an integrated 3G modem.

The MSM8625 and MSM8225 chipsets are designed to be hardware and software compatible with the MSM7x27A and MSM7x25A family of chipsets, giving device manufacturers the ability to seamlessly migrate their existing Snapdragon S1-based designs to S4 dual core-based designs.

The MSM8625 and MSM8225 chipsets will be available on Qualcomm's third generation QRD development platform in the first half of 2012, in addition to being available as standalone chipsets.

This Snapdragon processor is particularly useful for device manufacturers to efficiently expand their smartphone product lines with more advanced and more capable 3G smartphone products.

To further simplify and improve time-to-launch of cost effective 3G solutions for device manufacturers, Qualcomm also announced the third-generation of its Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) ecosystem program to enable third party device manufacturers to develop differentiated high volume smartphones with lower development costs and faster time to market.

The QRD ecosystem program includes a comprehensive set of software and hardware components that allows third party hardware and software vendors to have their products pre-tested and optimized for the QRD development platform.

''Smartphones present a large business opportunity for many of our customers, which is why we have created the QRD ecosystem program to assist them with developing compelling product designs with competitive differentiation,'' said Cristiano Amon, senior vice president of product management at Qualcomm.