Almost two months have passed since Qualcomm will present its Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, the refresh of its top of the range that usually debuts around six months after the new SoC does each year, in this case the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 presented in December of last year. Thus, if we apply the same pattern, we can assume that the next generational jump of the integrated flagship from Qualcomm it should be announced when our houses start to smell like nougat.
That, with the time required for the design, testing and production of such a component, has already allowed us to imagine that the work in relation to the future Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which we assume will be the name that Qualcomm will give it. to their next top of the range, they must be quite advanced. Perhaps not enough to enter the production lines, but yes with fully functional prototypes so that manufacturers can start carrying out their tests.
And today, as we can read in Mydrivers (in Chinese), we would already have a confirmation (unofficial, yes) that, indeed, the first samples of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 would have already reached some manufacturers that, with them, they would already be testing the chip in the models that will be the top of the range in 2023. We do not know, however, which manufacturers would be the first to have received these SoCs, but we can imagine that they will be the most relevant of the Android ecosystem.
According to this leak, the first test results would be quite encouraging For both Qualcomm and the manufacturers participating in the tests, the overall power efficiency of the 8550 (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 reference number) would be better than the 8475 (Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1) by no less than 15 %. This is especially important if we take into account the thermal problems that the 8 Gen 1 has dragged on, and that we can infer that they would have been resolved in the design of this new chip.
At the moment we know (according to rumors and leaks) that Qualcomm would have ordered the production of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to TSMC, which will produce it in its 4 nanometer node, a scale in which TSMC is already very experienced and from which, consequently, it knows how to take great advantage, something that should be noted in improvements in performance, optimization of energy consumption, heat generation and battery life. If Qualcomm has really done its homework with this chip, the top-of-the-range generation of 2023 can take a significant leap forward.
