Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 670 Processor For Mid-Range Smartphones

Qualcomm has announced the new Snapdragon 670 chipset, which replaces last year’s Snapdragon 660. The Snapdragon 670 processor will be used for mid-range Android smartphones and it will be able to bring flagship artificial intelligence (AI) features to these devices.

Qualcomm quietly announced the Snapdragon 670 through ZDNet. The new member of the Snapdragon 600 series brings in better performance than the SD660 and is “engineered to deliver cutting-edge technologies to mainstream smartphone buyers who want to make the most of what their Snapdragon-powered device has to offer.”

The Snapdragon 670 is powered by the Kyro 360 CPU and it utilizes two cores with up to 2.0GHz speeds along with six efficiency cores capable of 1.7GHz. Qualcomm says that the new chipset should deliver performance that’s up to 15 percent faster than what the SD660 was able to offer.

The Snapdragon 670 also includes the Adreno 615 GPU, which will handle graphics rendering. This GPU should deliver up to 25 percent faster rendering than the SD660 and it will be able to support Android smartphones with 2,560 x 1,600 screen resolution displays. The Snapdragon 670 includes Qualcomm’s X12 LTE modem, which should deliver improved speeds and better signals where network coverage is less than adequate.

The main feature of the Snapdragon 670 is its capability to deliver AI features that are typically found on higher-end or flagship smartphones. The new chipset features the improved Qualcomm AI engine that is capable of delivering AI performance that’s up to 1.8 times better than what’s found on the SD660. The AI engine harnesses its power from the CPU, GPU and the Hexagon 685 digital signal processor, which is also found on the flagship Snapdragon 845, according to Android Authority.

Qualcomm’s AI engine supports a variety of machine learning frameworks, including Google’s TensorFlow, Facebook’s Caffe and Qualcomm’s own Neural Processing SDK and Hexagon Neural Network. The improved AI on the Snapdragon 670 should also help in processing better photos by using automated camera features.

Speaking of camera performance, the Snapdragon 670 features an image processor that supports 25-megapixel single camera or two 16-megapixel dual cameras. The new chipset will also allow mid-range Android smartphones to record videos at 4K resolution at 30 frames-per-second. The Snapdragon 670 also has the Spectra 250 image signal processor, which should deliver noise reduction and depth sensing features to cameras.

Qualcomm says that it has already begun shipping the Snapdragon 670 to Android smartphone manufacturers. It’s very likely that new mid-range smartphones powered by this chipset will arrive before the end of the year.