Rumors about Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 mobile chipset have revealed a few interesting details, including some of its critical specs. The Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 promises to be Qualcomm's first mid-range processor with the new naming convention that was first seen on the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. While the 8-series chip is found on almost all current flagship Android smartphones, the upcoming 7-series processor is expected to make its way to several premium mid-range devices in the coming months.
Qualcomm debuted its new naming scheme with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which was unveiled late last year. The new nomenclature brings the company's mobile chips in line with its PC chips that also follow a similar naming convention. While the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 name is yet to be officially confirmed by Qualcomm, a slew of leaks over the past several weeks seem to suggest that's what the upcoming SoC will be called.
Various leaks over the past weeks have revealed that the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 will ship with a quad-core CPU and the Adreno 662 GPU. According to tipster Digital Chat Station, the CPU will have a 4+4 big.LITTLE configuration, with four Cortex-A710 cores clocked at 2.36 GHz and four Cortex-A510 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. However, the clock speeds aren't a lock-in, as the chip is still said to be in testing, and the exact frequencies could change by the time it is released to OEMs. There's no information on the ISP, DSP, NPU and modem, but as a premium mid-range chip in 2022, it will almost surely support 5G connectivity.
Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Is A Premium Mid-Range SoC
There's no definitive word on who will manufacture the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, but rumors suggest that Samsung is doing the honors. If that's the case, it would likely do so on its 4nm process that's already used for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and the Exynos 2200. For context, TSMC's 4nm process, which underpins the MediaTek 9000, is generally thought to be more advanced. Interestingly, some online speculation suggests that the upcoming chip could be manufactured by TSMC on its 5nm process, which is used to manufacture MediaTek's Dimensity 8100. With so many conflicting rumors floating around, it remains unclear which one will be correct in the end.
As for when the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 will debut, YouTube tech creator and tipster Utsav Techie seemingly believes that it will be announced in May 2022. The information, however, is best taken with a pinch of salt in the absence of third-party corroboration. Once Qualcomm's new chip is official, it will likely find its way to a wide range of smartphones from various vendors. At which point, it will be interesting to see how the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 compares to MediaTek's Dimensity 8000 and 8100, both of which have notched up impressive benchmark scores.