Qualcomm, the world’s largest supplier of processors for mobile applications, said this week that its highest-performing system-on-chip – the Qualcomm 800 – will be the first product in the world to be made using 28HPM process technology from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. The process technology is designed to enable high-performance on highly-integrated SoCs.

“By utilizing TSMC’s 28HPM process, Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors will deliver industry leading performance and outstanding battery life,” said Jim Lederer, executive vice president and general manager, Qualcomm Technologies.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 features four Qualcomm Krait-400 (Cortex-A9-like with 3 decoders, 11 stage pipeline, VFPv4 FPU, 128-bit NEON accelerator, L2 2MB cache [512KB per core]) general-purpose cores with speeds of up to 2.3GHz per core customized for low power consumption, powerful Adreno 330 graphics processing unit (unified shader architecture; supports Direct3D 11 feature level 9_3, OpenGL ES 3.0, OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL ES 1.1, OpenVG 1.1, EGL 1.4, Direct3D Mobile, SVGT 1.2) and 32-bit dual-channel LPDDR3 controller with up to 800MHz memory support. The chip fully supports 1080p capture and playback, and can support up to a 13MP camera.

In addition to quad-core CPU processing power and advanced graphics core, Qualcomm 800 incorporate a set of radio technologies, including Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, GSM/GRPS/EDGE, W-CDMA/UMTS/HSDPA/HSPA+, MBMS, 4G/LTE cat.4, CDMA2000/EV-DO and TD-SCDMA.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor with four Krait 400 cores is the industry’s first high-end chip to integrate a 4G/LTE Advanced modem with carrier aggregation and category 4 data speeds up to 150Mb/s.

“In working closely with TSMC, we maximize the impact this process will have on bringing Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors to tablet and high-end smartphone solutions, while continuing to find ways to align our business and strategic objectives that help to define the value of our partnership,” added Mr. Lederer.

With its large speed and power range, TSMC’s 28HPM process is optimized for mobile computing applications. It also supports wide market applications from application processors, integrated application processors with multimode LTE-Advanced Qualcomm Gobi modems to cloud-computing networking applications. The process could support CPU speeds of 2-2.3GHz with less than 750mW of power consumption per core. Compared to TSMC’s 40LP, 28HPM devices are 2.5-2.7X faster, and cut active power in half.

“Qualcomm Technologies uses its world-class architecture and deep familiarity with 28nm design to achieve breakthrough 2.3GHz performance and power characteristics high-end smartphone users want today. We are happy to see Qualcomm Technologies’ achievement in producing the first 28HPM device and congratulate them on their ongoing mobile device leadership,” said Rick Cassidy, president of TSMC North America.

Tags: Qualcomm, 28HPM, 28nm, TSMC, Snapdragon, Krait, Adreno, 4G/LTE