Upcoming Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 Chip

In November Qualcomm announced that its next-generation flagship processor would be the Snapdragon 835 and that it would be manufactured using the 10nm process in partnership with Samsung, which also made the Snapdragon 820 and 821 as part of a decade-long collaboration between the two companies.

Now in production and expected to make it to devices by the first half of 2017, the Snapdragon 835 is exciting because it's the processor expected to be used in the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone. The 835 is the first Qualcomm processor to be made with a 10nm process, which will bring various improvements including performance and efficiency, which in turn will result in better battery life for devices.

Compared to its 14nm process, Samsung 10nm method offers up to 30 percent increase in area efficiency with 27 percent higher performance or up to 40 percent lower power consumption. Since this is Qualcomm’s first 10nm processor, it’s extremely small and fits 3bn transistors. It’s smaller than an average human fingernail in surface and 1,000x thinner than a strange of hair. This should result in thinner phones, space for bigger batteries, better efficiency and therefore longer battery life. 

The integrated GPU is used to support high end graphics with the new Adreno 540 delivering up to 25 percent faster graphics rendering and 60 times more display colors, as compared to previous Adreno GPUs. It supports real-life quality visuals for immersive experiences, such as with AR and VR.

There are countless ways that AR and VR can be used in the enterprise and I am excited to see the technology continuing to advance. As a professional engineer who designs commercial ships, I would love to have a client put on a VR headset and "walk" around the ship before we finish designing it and before a single piece of steel is cut to build it.

Snapdragon 835 comes with the new Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0 technology in the Snapdragon 835, it is advertised that you can get five hours of battery life in just five minutes. That's an incredible claim that I look forward to testing out.