Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 has surfaced in benchmarks of upcoming smartphones and Qualcomm has finally sent out the invites for the unveiling of the 660. The event is scheduled next week in Beijing and Singapore. Rumor mills have been continuously speculating the Snapdragon 660 specifications and according to the same the mid-range SoC will be manufactured with 14nm and paired with the Adreno 512 GPU. Qualcomm might opt for the typical octa-core Kyro or they might combine Cortex-A73 and Cortex-A53 chipsets with big.LITTLE architecture.
The report further reveals that the SoC will support UFS 2.1 storage along with LPDDR4 RAM. Furthermore, the Snapdragon 660 is expected to be bundled along with Snapdragon X10 LTE modem capable of download speeds up to 450 Mbps and 50 Mbps upload speeds. A bunch of upcoming smartphones including Xiaomi Redmi Pro 2, Mi Max 2, Oppo R11, Vivo X9s Plus and the Nokia 7/8 are expected to be powered by the Snapdragon 660.
That being said even if Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 660 this month the chipset will only reach the mass production phase by the second half of this year. It’s quite possible that the Snapdragon 660 might be the preferred choice for a majority of mid-range smartphones releasing in the second half.
On a related note, earlier reports have already hinted at the possibility of Samsung and Qualcomm working together on the upcoming Snapdragon 845. Once the development phase is completed Samsung or the TSMC will start manufacturing the chipset. In all likelihood, Qualcomm might include some hardware enhancements for the Snapdragon 845 in order to better support the VR and AR functionality. Qualcomm had recently announced how it will be amending its naming structure and has laid special emphasis on the Snapdragon as a mobile platform rather than just being called a chipset.
We will be in Singapore for the Snapdragon Day on May 9, and hopefully, will be able to bring in more details live. So stay tuned.