Qualcomm's Second Act Includes Dual Core Processors for Smartphones

Posted 06/01/2010 at 10:42am | by Paul Lilly

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One of the main reasons why Google's Nexus One and other smartphones have been so well received is because they come built around Qualcomm's mighty 1GHz Snapdragon processor. This single core chip has given today's mobile OSes the pep they need to tackle computing on the go, and things are about to get even better.

According to reports, Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset family has given birth to two new processor cores -- the MSM8260 and MSM8660 -- both of which come clocked at 1.2GHz. These are the first of the Snapdragon series to have dual-cores, Qualcomm said.

So what's the difference? The MSM8260 supports only HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access) networks, while the MSM8660 is a multimode part that supports HSPA+ or EV-DO Rev. B high speed networks. Otherwise the chips are the same, with each one packing enough processing punch to play back 1080p video.

Qualcomm said it is currently shipping engineering samples to smartphone makers, so it will likely be another six to eight months before you start to see these show up in new phones.

Image Credit: Qualcomm