Snapdragon 855 Being Tested As World’s First 7nm Chip

Yesterday Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon X24 latest gigabit LTE modem that reaches up to 2Gbps. It’s the world’s first Cat.20 rate, but what’s more interesting it is based on a 7nm process node. Previously, we have heard Qualcomm and MediaTek have had some difficulties with making 7nm chips. But the future is here. Later, Roland Quandt tweeted the world’s first 5G SoC running on a 7nm manufacturing process is already in tests. It’s the Snapdragon 855.

Last week the American chip maker demonstrated new technologies in face of the spectrum sharing and URLLC (ultra-reliable low latency communication). According to the official announcement, they should boost the speeds with the recently approved 5G NR standards. But before it happens the manufacturers should provide high-speed mobile data. The X24 is the world’s first mobile chip reaching such results. It’s an astonishing move from Snapdragon 835’s Cat.16 that provides up to 1Gbps speed. It is able to reach such a fast connectivity due to the 7x carrier aggregation support on the downlink as well as 4×4 MMIO (multi-user input and output) on up to 5 aggregated carriers. As we said, it supports Category 20 upload speeds, 3×20 MHz CA and up to 256-QAM when it comes to the uplink.

The first phones with the newest Snapdragon 845 chip will hit the market in the coming days. But they will continue using a 10nm process node. So the first chips and phones running on X24 should appear on the market in 2019 only. Earlier we have heard the first chip to run on the 7nm process node will be the Snapdragon 855. But yesterday’s tweet clearly shows it will be named the Snapdragon 855. Though the author didn’t disclose any parameters of the upcoming chip, we deeply believe it will enhance the power efficiency, AI, ISP, storage (UFS3.0), etc.