Qualcomm Launches New Processor

Qualcomm Inc. on Wednesday revealed new security and battery life features on its latest Snapdragon 845 mobile phone processor, a chip that customarily powers high-end Android-based phones from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd and others.

The chipmaker company launched its latest Snapdragon processor as it looks for sources of revenue beyond the smartphone.

The chips are important to Qualcomm's financial picture while its patent licensing business is under attack from Apple Inc.

The Snapdragon 845 will offer new artificial intelligence capabilities, more sophisticated virtual- and augmented-reality applications, and a new “secure processing unit” to better guard passwords and biometric information from hackers, Qualcomm said on Wednesday.

For the first time, Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip also features physically separate processor called a "Secure Processing Unit" for storing information like fingerprints and iris scans, similar to the technology found on Apple's iPhone. Previous Qualcomm chips had a "trusted zone" that was not physically separate from the rest of the processor.

"With biometric identification on the rise, it was important to take (security) to the next level," said Keith Kressin, a senior vice president of Qualcomm.

The company tweaked various parts of the chip for so-called machine learning applications. While that includes things consumers might notice like image recognition, it also includes behind-the-scenes improvements. For example, the chip will help ensure that a user's fingers do not accidentally register as taps when gripping the sides of an edge-to-edge display.

Kressin said the chip will also help phones register touchscreen inputs when wet. That is a critical improvement because even though many top phone models from Samsung and others are now water resistant, they are difficult to operate with water on the screen.

The newest Snapdragon also has features aimed at virtual and augmented reality headsets. One feature called "Adreno foveation" will let the edges of a headset screen operate at lower resolutions while the center of the screen is sharper, similar to how human peripheral vision is fuzzier than central vision. The technique can save battery live, Kressin said.

Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker, said that it would be among the first companies to use the new Snapdragon platform to power its main devices next year. 

Qualcomm is launching the latest generation of its signature product ahead of its usual schedule. Its predecessor, the Snapdragon 835, was launched in January at the Consumer Electronics Show. The chip’s earlier debut will fuel speculation that Samsung, whose top-end Galaxy devices typically run Qualcomm’s processors, is preparing to launch a flagship smartphone at CES next month incorporating the 845. 

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