“Qualcomm’s history of breakthrough technology inventions has paved the way for our continued leadership in the premium-tier mobile segment,” said Alex Katouzian, senior vice president and general manager of mobile, compute and infrastructure, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “The new flagship Snapdragon 888 Mobile Platform will enable OEMs to further differentiate their devices and allows users to experience the latest cutting-edge mobile technologies.”

Snapdragon 888 Key Features

• Connectivity: Snapdragon 888 is the world’s most advanced platform that implements 5G, along with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth audio for enhanced mobile experiences. The integrated 3rd generation Snapdragon X60 5G Modem-RF System enables support for 5G sub-6 carrier aggregation and mmWave to deliver the world’s fastest commercially available 5G speeds, up to 7.5 Gbps. The Modem-RF System also supports superior coverage across virtually all major networks worldwide – including nationwide 5G thanks to the use of Dynamic Spectrum Sharing technology. Snapdragon 888 is also unique in supporting Global 5G multi-SIM, which allows for international roaming, managing personal and work numbers on the same phone, or optimizing monthly subscription costs. Plus, this platform includes the recently debuted Qualcomm® FastConnect 6900 Mobile Connectivity System, supporting the fastest Wi-Fi 6 speeds of any mobile Wi-Fi offering in the industry (up to 3.6 Gbps), as well as new 6 GHz capacity with Wi-Fi 6E. FastConnect 6900 also delivers a new class of crisp, reliable and responsive audio with support for Bluetooth 5.2, dual Bluetooth antennas, Qualcomm® aptX suite, broadcast audio and advanced modulation & coding optimizations.
   
• AI: Snapdragon 888 takes the biggest architectural leap forward in AI. The completely redesigned 6th generation Qualcomm® AI Engine with the new Qualcomm® Hexagon 780 processor enables premium experiences that blend AI with professional cameras, personal voice assistants, elite gaming, lightning-fast connectivity and more. Snapdragon 888 delivers industry-leading power efficiency and performance with up to three times performance per watt improvement over the prior generation—all at an astonishing 26 TOPS. The platform is further enhanced by the 2nd generation Qualcomm® Sensing Hub, which integrates a dedicated low-power AI processor to enable use cases like screen awake, lift and activity detection, and audio event detection. This is achieved by using contextual awareness and combining new data streams like 5G, WiFi, and Bluetooth. Additionally, the new Qualcomm AI Engine Direct software will provide developers the flexibility to run their next generation on-device AI-powered apps at full-throttle.
   
• Camera: Snapdragon 888 transforms mobile devices into professional quality cameras. Featuring the new Qualcomm Spectra 580 ISP, this platform is the first Snapdragon with a Triple Image Signal Processor (ISP), capable of capturing from three cameras simultaneously at breakneck processing speeds—up to 2.7 gigapixels per second. Users can also enjoy 120fps burst snapshots for capturing ultra-fast high-resolution action shots, or capture three 4K HDR videos at the same time. New 4K HDR with computational HDR video capture provides dramatic improvements to color, contrast, and detail. The Qualcomm Spectra 580 ISP also debuts a new low light architecture, for brighter photos, even in near darkness. Also included is photo capture in 10-bit color depth in the HEIF format – so you can capture photos in over a billion shades of color.
   
• Gaming: Snapdragon 888 is armed with the full Qualcomm® Snapdragon Elite Gaming arsenal. Users can harness the power of ultra-smooth play at the highest HDR quality graphics, with desktop-level capabilities. Snapdragon 888 delivers Variable Rate Shading (VRS) for the first time to mobile devices. In comparison to the prior generation, VRS improves game rendering by up to 30% for mobile’s most immersive experiences to date, while also improving power. Qualcomm® Game Quick Touch increases responsiveness by up to 20%, dramatically lowering touch latency and giving the ultimate advantage in multiplayer games. With the speeds and low latencies that 5G and Wi-Fi 6 deliver, elite gamers can unite or compete in real-time for unmatched global competition.
   
• Performance: Snapdragon 888 packs in major architectural advances. It is manufactured using the most advanced 5nm process technology, allowing breakthrough performance and superior power efficiency. The Qualcomm® Kryo 680 generates up to a 25% uplift in overall CPU performance and allows top frequencies of up to 2.84GHz. It is also the first commercial CPU subsystem to be based on the Arm Cortex-X1. The Qualcomm® Adreno 660 GPU achieves its biggest performance leap yet, delivering up to 35% faster graphics rendering compared to the previous generation. More importantly, the Kryo 680 and Adreno 660 are able to sustain their performance over long periods of time, which is the hallmark of Snapdragon performance.
   
• Security: Snapdragon 888 includes many security measures for keeping on-device user data private including Qualcomm® Secure Processing Unit, Qualcomm® Trusted Execution Environment, and support for Qualcomm® Wireless Edge Services – a cloud service that Snapdragon can interact with for apps and services to measure the security of the devices and its wireless connections in real-time for secure experiences. Snapdragon 888 features a new Type-1 Hypervisor, which provides a new way to secure and isolate data between apps and multiple operating systems on the same device. Additionally, in collaboration with Truepic, Snapdragon 888 can capture cryptographically-sealed photosthat are compliant with the open Content Authenticity Initiative standard.

Devices based on Snapdragon 888 are expected to be commercially available in the first quarter of 2021.
Livestream replays will also be available Snapdragon Tech Summit Event Hub.

“Creating premium experiences takes a relentless focus on innovation. It takes long term commitment, even in the face of immense uncertainty,” said Cristiano Amon, president, Qualcomm Incorporated. “It takes an organization that’s focused on tomorrow, to continue to deliver the technologies that redefine premium experiences.”

Kicking Off a New Era for Mobile

Qualcomm Technologies builds foundational technologies for smartphones first, and then these technologies extend to the broader Snapdragon tiers and into important growth segments being transformed by mobile technology, such as Always On, Always Connected PCs, Extended Reality (XR) devices, Edge/Cloud AI products, 5G Fixed Wireless Broadband, and multiple others. The requirements and complexity of these diverse applications depend on innovation that comes from breakthroughs in the premium tier. Alex Katouzian, senior vice president and general manager, mobile, compute, and infrastructure, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., introduced the Company’s latest flagship Qualcomm® Snapdragon 888 5G Mobile Platform, which delivers the premium experiences users deserve.

Lekha Motiwala, director of product management for Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., shared an inside look at the Company’s most premium offering.

• Snapdragon 888, with the 3rd generation Qualcomm® Snapdragon X60 5G Modem-RF System, enables global compatibility by offering mmWave and sub-6 across all major bands worldwide, as well as support for 5G carrier aggregation, global multi-SIM, stand alone, non-stand alone, and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing.
• The new 6th generation Qualcomm® AI Engine, with the completely re-engineered Qualcomm® Hexagon processor, takes a pivotal leap forward in AI compared to the previous generation to improve performance, power efficiency—all at an astonishing 26 tera operations per second (TOPS). The platform is further enhanced by the 2nd generation Qualcomm® Sensing Hub, which incorporates lower-power always-on AI processing for intuitive, intelligent features.
• Since its inception, Qualcomm® Snapdragon Elite Gaming has delivered dozens of mobile-first technologies to smartphones, including Updateable GPU Drivers, Desktop Forward Rendering, and frame rates achieving up to 144 frames per second (fps). The 3rd generation of Snapdragon Elite Gaming featured in Snapdragon 888 delivers Qualcomm Technologies’ most significant upgrade in Qualcomm® Adreno GPU performance.
• Snapdragon 888 will triple down on the future of computational photography and transform smartphones into professional quality cameras. With the faster gigapixel speed Qualcomm Spectra ISP, users can capture photos and videos at 2.7 gigapixels per second or roughly 120 photos at 12MP resolution—up to 35% faster than the previous generation.

During the keynote, Qualcomm Technologies demonstrated the power of Snapdragon 888 through a Radio-Controlled race car connected entirely by 5G mmWave. Two race cars were connected to a private 5G network that was built with the help of Verizon and Ericsson and controlled over 5G using a Snapdragon 888 reference design with the Snapdragon X60 5G Modem-RF System. The drivers controlled these cars from over a mile away and viewed live video of the track from afar using the amazing capture capabilities of Snapdragon 888. Additionally, with the help of Tension, the race can be viewed on multiple low latency streams to track the RC cars’ position on a dynamic map using the newest location capabilities of the Qualcomm® Location Suite for improved accuracy. This showcases the use case possibilities when high performance, reliable, and low latency communications are the norm.

Amon, Katouzian, and Motiwala were also joined by ecosystem leaders (in order of appearance):

• "Verizon is on the forefront of showcasing the transformative capabilities of 5G Ultra Wideband," said Nicola Palmer, chief product officer at Verizon. "Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon Tech Summit Digital 2020 is an opportunity to reflect on the successes we’ve had this year, including launching nationwide 5G coverage, dozens of 5G Ultra Wideband cities, MEC deployments, and a multitude of 5G devices and innovations. It also gives us the opportunity to look towards 2021 as we continue to bring the possibilities of 5G to life for businesses, individuals, and society."
• "NTT DOCOMO has been a leading mobile innovator in Japan for nearly 30 years and this leadership has continued into the 5G era, as the first operator in Japan to launch commercial 5G service in March this year,” said Naoki Tani, executive vice president and chief technology officer, NTT DOCOMO, INC. “5G enables a new era of mobile experiences that are making people’s lives more convenient and comfortable, and these experiences are being brought to life on the DOCOMO 5G network through our exciting portfolio of 5G devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 5G mobile platforms. We look forward to the next generation of 5G devices powered by Qualcomm Technologies’ industry-leading Snapdragon 888 5G Mobile Platform to deliver the best experiences on DOCOMO’s 5G network.”
• “Our work with Qualcomm Technologies is aligned with our mission to make the latest Natural Language Processing technology accessible to researchers and businesses around the globe, and run as fast and efficiently as possible” said Clément Delangue, co-founder and chief executive officer of Hugging Face. “We need our models to run on the most premium of mobile platforms… and that means Qualcomm Snapdragon.”
• “Xperia smartphones are feature-packed with Sony’s advanced imaging and entertainment technologies, and it’s essential for our products to be powered by the latest premium Snapdragon mobile platform to offer the best-in-class experiences to our fans. One of the entertainment experiences which we are very passionate about is mobile gaming, and we are overwhelmed by the incredible positive response we’ve received from fans around the world for Xperia 1 II and Xperia 5 II,” said Mitsuya Kishida, president, Sony Mobile Communications Inc. “We are committed to further enhancing mobile entertainment in the 5G era and look forward to working closely with Qualcomm Technologies to continue delivering world-class mobile gaming and other experiences on the go.”
• “In collaboration with Epic Games, the OnePlus 8 Series became the first smartphones to deliver Fortnite at 90 FPS, a groundbreaking mobile gaming achievement made possible by Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite Gaming,” said Kyle Kiang, chief marketing officer, OnePlus.
• “Over the past decade, from the first generation of Xiaomi mobile phones to the 10th anniversary masterpiece Xiaomi 10 series, we have been joining hands together with Qualcomm Technologies to bring the most advanced mobile experiences to users around the world,” said Lei Jun, Founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Xiaomi. “Snapdragon 888 is the most powerful mobile platform from Qualcomm Technologies ever. In addition to the industry leading 5G connectivity, it has brought groundbreaking breakthroughs and innovations in AI, gaming, and camera. I’m glad that our new flagship smartphone Mi11 will be the one of the first devices with Snapdragon 888. This is another cutting-edge product from us and will be loaded with various hardcore technologies.”
• The following OEMs provided their support for Snapdragon 888, including ASUS, Black Shark, Lenovo, LG, MEIZU, Motorola, Nubia, realme, OnePlus, OPPO, Sharp, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE.

This year’s Snapdragon Tech Summit Digital keynotes are being livestreamed on Dec 1 and 2 at 7:00 a.m. PT (qualcomm.com/snapdragonsummit). Stay tuned to the Qualcomm Twitter handle for live updates before and during the keynotes. #SnapdragonSummit

The World Health Organization reports that a third of the global population over age 65 has disabling hearing loss and that more than one billion teens and adults are at risk for hearing loss, with more than 900 million people expected to have disabling hearing loss by 2050. In fact, the Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. 2020 State of Play Report found 40 percent of consumers surveyed are interested in earbuds that can provide automatic hearing assistance, as needed. In response, Jacoti has combined its medical expertise with the engineering prowess of Qualcomm Technologies to provide high-quality hearing enhancement solutions.

“By working with Jacoti, we’re making hearing enhancement and personalization technology more accessible to consumers than ever before. For our customers, who are competing in a rapidly changing and crowded market, exciting technologies like this will provide a really interesting way to differentiate and enrich the end user experience, ” said James Chapman, vice president and general manager, Voice, Music & Wearables, Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd.

“We are excited to have this collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies and be able to integrate our audiologically-based hearing solutions into this powerful platform to improve the audio experience of all users,” said Jacques Kinsbergen as CEO and Founder of Jacoti. “It will also help us realize our social mission to make state-of-the-art hearing solutions accessible and affordable for those with hearing challenges throughout the world.  We believe that hearing loss is both a medical condition and a consumer challenge and therefore needs a consumer-driven and consumer-oriented solution.”

Jacoti’s technology comes with a self-administered hearing test that prompts various tones and frequencies, to establish volume thresholds for the user’s level of hearing. Two audiograms are then created, tailored specifically to the user’s right and left ears, acting as the user’s individual hearing prescription based on their level of individual hearing. These bespoke audiograms, in conjunction with the Jacoti technology, will work on devices featuring the Qualcomm QCC5100 Series SoCs and across multiple devices, with the software intercepting incoming sound before it reaches the user’s ears and then adjusting the volume of the appropriate frequencies to compensate for the user’s individual hearing deficiencies. The software on the device also prevents the user from exposure to sounds that can cause further hearing damage, resulting in a clear, safe, and pleasurable listening experience.

For more information on Qualcomm QCC5100 series SoCs, visit: www.qualcomm.com/products/ qcc5100-series

“Qualcomm Technologies is well positioned to support complete edge-to-cloud high performance AI solutions that lead the industry in performance per watt,” said Keith Kressin, senior vice president and general manager, computing and edge cloud, Qualcomm Technologies. “Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 is now shipping to select worldwide customers and we look forward to seeing commercial products launch in the first half of 2021.”

Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 is designed to offer cutting-edge AI inference efficiency based on performance per Watt with capability to process up to 400 trillion operations per second (TOPS). Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 supports multiple form factors with PCI-E card level power profiles ranging from 15W to 75W.

Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 software suite provides a comprehensive stack of tools and supports popular frameworks including Tensorflow, PyTorch, Caffe, and runtimes such as GLOW and ONNX. The software suite includes the Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 Applications SDK with compiler and simulator; along with the Platform SDK with runtimes, APIs, kernel drivers and tools. This software suite is designed to enable the development, testing and deployment of Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 platforms into a multitude of production environments.

The Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 Edge Development Kit is an optimized system solution offering high performance AI inferencing, video processing and 5G connectivity. It is powered by three modular Qualcomm® components:

• Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 – For low-power and high-performance AI inference processing
• Qualcomm® Snapdragon 865 Modular Platform – For application and video processing
• Snapdragon X55 Modem-RF System Module – Leading 5G connectivity in a precertified module offering global carrier support

For more information on Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 and the Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 Edge Development Kit go to https://www.qualcomm.com/products/cloud-artificial-intelligence.

“Qualcomm continues to pave the way for 5G commercialization at scale, and the expansion of 5G into our Snapdragon 4-series is expected to address regions that currently have approximately 3.5 billion smartphone users combined,” said Cristiano Amon, president, Qualcomm Incorporated. “The Snapdragon 4-series 5G Mobile Platform is designed to exceed expectations for the mass-market segment by bringing an assortment of predominately high- and mid-tier features to a broader audience. It will deliver on the promise of making 5G accessible to all
smartphone users.”

Qualcomm Technologies’ 5G mobile platform offerings to date include:
• Snapdragon 8-series: Snapdragon 865 Plus, Snapdragon 865, Snapdragon 855
• Snapdragon 7-series: Snapdragon 768G, Snapdragon 765 and 765G
• Snapdragon 6-series: Snapdragon 690

“Motorola strives to bring smarter technology to all. With the extension of Qualcomm Technologies’ 5G Mobile Platform into the Snapdragon 4-series, we are positioned to deliver a more complete portfolio of 5G devices to our consumers, emphasizing our leadership in the 5G space,” said Sergio Buniac, president, Motorola. “We’re excited to continue our collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies in 2021, working on a unified mission of offering 5G for everyone.”

“OPPO and Qualcomm Technologies have closely collaborated on the expansion of 5G. We are very happy that Qualcomm Technologies is scaling 5G technology to the Snapdragon 4-series. We will continue to collaborate with Qualcomm Technologies to drive the large-scale adoption of 5G around the world,” said Tony Chen, founder and chief executive officer, OPPO.

Lei Jun, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Xiaomi, said, “2020 marks the year of 5G proliferation. In scaling the deployment of 5G, we have introduced several 5G smartphones powered by Snapdragon 8-series and 7-series 5G mobile platforms. Today, it is exciting to see Qualcomm Technologies expand 5G to the Snapdragon 4-series, accelerating 5G global commercialization. Xiaomi will become one of the world’s first OEMs to introduce a 5G smartphone powered by the Snapdragon 4-series 5G mobile platform. This is another step forward in our long-standing collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies.”
More information about the Snapdragon 4-series 5G Mobile Platform will be unveiled later. Devices based on this platform are expected to be commercially available in the first quarter of 2021.

VVC is the next-generation video compression standard designed to power the creation and consumption of rich digital media experiences. Incorporating innovative new solutions for compression, decompression, processing, and coded representation of video images, audio, and their combination, VVC makes the video transmission more efficient and offers a 40% reduction in file size compared with the previous standard, HEVC, while maintaining the same level of video quality. Compared with a raw data file, VVC offers a 1000x reduction.

“By 2022, 82% of internet traffic will be video. In our connected world of Netflix, Zoom calls, and video sharing, video compression is an extraordinarily important technology area that people around the world rely on every day,” said Marta Karczewicz, vice president of technology, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and nominee for the European Inventor Award’s Lifetime Achievement laurel for her seminal work in video coding. “Qualcomm Technologies’ world-class engineers have driven the standard to completion with our foundational technology contributions and unparalleled leadership.”

“Qualcomm Technologies is extremely proud of the great work our inventors and engineers have done in creating the core technologies that went into the VVC standard and driving the standard to completion in the middle of a global pandemic. Qualcomm is an IP leader across so many different fields of technologies that facilitate people’s connected experiences on a daily basis. We change the way the world connects, computes, and communicates, and we’re excited to enable the new possibilities of video streaming VVC offers the world,” said Jim Thompson, executive vice president, engineering and chief technology officer, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

VVC, like the 5G cellular standard, is the result of a collaborative effort between dozens of companies offering technologies and driving consensus. Qualcomm is the world’s leading technology company in these standards, developing and contributing the foundational technological innovations that form the heart of how these technologies work.

The Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program, launched in 2019 as part of the Qualcomm® Advantage Network, is designed to connect cities, municipalities, government agencies, and enterprises with an ecosystem of providers to help deliver greater efficiencies, cost savings, safety and sustainability. By connecting members looking for smart solutions, the program aims to enrich lives through the accelerated transformation of critical infrastructure and services.  As part of its collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Infinite will further the advancement of smart connected spaces by leveraging its expertise in platforms that support digital transformation, security, user experience, analytics, collective intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI).  Infinite brings its Zyter SmartSpaces innovation-driven software and integration platform to further the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program mission by fostering the rapid development, deployment and lower cost of maintenance of smart cities.

The end-to-end digital solution platform addresses the key challenges of developing smart cities, smart enterprises, and makes IoTaaS a commercial reality by leveraging Qualcomm Technologies’ full suite of technologies to enable sensor devices supporting edge computing and intelligence, data management systems, hardware-based security, AI/ML applications, and the latest connectivity technologies with a path to 5G proliferation, along with a complete dashboard with central control and a command management system with the flexibility to meet businesses’ and governments’ customized needs.

“The challenges governments face as they try to make their cities smarter are often large and complex, and when combined with the fragmentation common in the IoT space, they can be extremely difficult to overcome,” said Jeffery Torrance, vice president, business development of IoT, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Utilizing Qualcomm Technologies’ deep rooted experience in wireless, 5G, and IoT technologies and Infinite’s expertise as a digital transformation systems integrator, our off-the-shelf IoT platform is designed to provide a connectivity fabric and alleviate the enormous burden of sourcing, developing and integrating a variety of different and disparate technologies along with the cost effective means to manage and monetize their IoT solutions."

“We’re thrilled to take this next step with Qualcomm Technologies to deliver end-to-end digital transformation to connected ecosystems,” said Sanjay Govil, Chairman and Founder, Infinite. ”The combined strength of Qualcomm Technologies’ extensive Smart Cities network and the Zyter SmartSpaces Platform will provide an effective, modular, secure and versatile solution to meet Smart Space management needs across all industries, globally.”

About Infinite
Infinite is a global technology solution provider, headquartered in Rockville, MD, providing next-gen business technology solutions and product engineering services for Healthcare, Banking & Finance, Telecommunications & Technology, Media & Publishing, Public Sector, Government and Consumer service industries. With the proprietary industrial frameworks , platforms, accelerators, and domain experts, Infinite has been solving challenges for Fortune 1000 and advancing them for new possibilities. To know more, visit http://www.infinite.com/

The Zyter® intelligent enterprise platform is the foundation of connected ecosystems and digital transformation across the global healthcare, financial services, retail, media and entertainment, industrial (construction, transportation, manufacturing, logistics), and government sectors. Its secure, scalable architecture speeds the integration of disparate software, technologies, and data formats. Users also benefit from more insightful data analytics, collective intelligence, and AI. The platform’s versatile and fully managed connectivity fabric underpins end-to-end cost savings, safety, and sustainability. All with a superior user experience. Learn more at www.zyter.com.