Its not difficult to spot that smartphones have rapidly evolved into miniature PCs. The Mobile Station Modem MSM8260 and MSM8660 dual-CPU Snapdragon chipsets have been shipped in sample quantities according to the latest news from Qualcomm quarters.
The MSM solutions come embedded with the company’s advanced cores running at approximately 1.2GHz. These are third generation chipsets from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform. With the enhanced cores, the MSM8260 is designed for HSPA+, while the MSM8660 is engineered for multi-mode HSPA+/CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. B functionality. The combination is claimed to be suited to high levels of multimedia performance and web application.
“Qualcomm’s first-generation Snapdragon chipsets set a new standard for advanced smartphones and smartbook devices, and our second-generation solutions are already shipping in volume,” remarked Steve Mollenkopf, executive vice president of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “We are very excited by the innovation our customers are already showing as they begin designing products based on our dual-core MSM8260 and MSM8660 chipsets.”
Each chipset houses a powerful GPU with 3D/2D acceleration engines intended to accommodate Open GLES 2.0 and Open VG 1.1 acceleration, 1080p video encode/decode and dedicated low power audio engine. It also provides for integrated low power GPS and support for 24-bit WXGA 1280 x 800p resolution displays.
There’s no word on when Qualcomm will commence mass production of their MSM8260 and MSM8660 dual-CPU Snapdragon chipsets. The expected pricing details have been given a miss too.
