Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ Launch Delayed Due To Lockdowns In China

Last Updated on May 9, 2022 by Anu Joy

A couple of months back, we brought an exclusive story about Qualcomm’s upcoming flagship chipset—the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+. It was supposed to be announced this month, while smartphones powered by it were expected to hit the shelves by June 2022. 

However, according to latest rumours, Qualcomm might be delaying the launch. Digital Chat Station, a tipster from China, has revealed that the launch will now happen in the second half of 2022. This could be due to the rising COVID-19 cases in China and the lockdowns in certain parts of the country. The leakster also that Chinese companies Lenovo and Qualcomm share a “good relationship”, and we may see the chipset debuting in the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra smartphone. 

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ will succeed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, which was launched in November 2021. The rumoured chipset will be built on TSMC’s fabrication process, as opposed to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1’s Samsung fabrication process. It is likely to retain the core architecture with one ARM Cortex X2 core, three ARM Cortex-A710, and four ARM Cortex-A510 cores. However, it might come with slightly overclocked cores and a boosted GPU. 

The move to TSMC’s process might have to do with the overheating and low energy efficiency of last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 smartphone processor. Looking back, the last good performing flagship chipset from the company, the Snapdragon 870, was built on TSMC’s process. Later, the company jumped ship to Samsung for its Snapdragon 888, Snapdragon 888+, and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and that’s when things went south. With this move, Qualcomm expects the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ to score high on energy efficiency and offer sustained peak performance.

Are you excited about this new chipset from Qualcomm? Will it be able to offer similar performance and battery efficiency as Apple’s A15 Bionic? Let us know in the comments section below.