Qualcomm’s SD845 Chip Will Reduce Battery Consumption Of Wireless Earbuds, Speakers

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 chip is shaping up to be a very promising SoC. Just this Wednesday, Qualcomm disclosed that it has found a way for the new processor to help in reducing the power consumption of wireless earbuds connected to a Snapdragon 845-powered Android handset.

In a press release published on its official website, Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon 835’s successor in full detail. The company said its new SoC was designed thoughtfully with tech savvy consumers in mind. However, it may have forgotten to mention in the press release that the processor is also designed to please audiophiles and users that love to stream and listen to music using wireless earbuds or headphones for long periods.

Apparently, Qualcomm has developed a way for Android devices to connect two speakers simultaneously. The company tweaked Bluetooth 5.0 support on the Snapdragon 845 chip, so that it can accommodate two audio devices at the same time. What’s interesting here is that connecting two speakers to an Android device won’t require an extra accessory in-between.

Qualcomm senior director of product marketing Peter Carson told Phone Scoop that the new feature relies on proprietary technology found on both the software and hardware side. The typical setting for Bluetooth audio streaming on Android devices involves sending a signal to one speaker before it is relayed to another speaker. With Qualcomm’s tweak, an Android device can send individual music streams to two speakers or buds simultaneously.

Qualcomm’s invention eliminates the need for an in-between piece of hardware to rebroadcast the signal between two speakers or buds. In effect, the simultaneous relay of Bluetooth signals reduces power drain for the target wireless speakers or earbuds. To have access to this technology however, Qualcomm says phone companies should use the Snapdragon 845 processor and its proprietary APIs.

“The platform’s proprietary enhancements to Bluetooth 5 allow users to broadcast audio simultaneously to multiple wireless speakers, smartphones or other devices and are designed to reduce battery consumption of wireless earbuds by up to 50 percent compared to the previous generation.”

Another upgrade that Qualcomm highlighted in its press release has to do with the more immersive display technologies the Snapdragon 845 features. “[SD845] introduces an integrated Qualcomm Spectra 280 image signal processor and Qualcomm Adreno 630 visual processing subsystem. These brand-new architectures bring high-performance, true-to-life cinematic video capture, along with superior photography to flagship mobile devices.”

Below is a comprehensive list of all the features of the Snapdragon 845 platform:

• Ultra HD premium capture
• Qualcomm Spectra Module Program, featuring Active Depth Sensing
• MCTF video capture
• Multi-frame noise reduction
• High performance capture up to 16MP @60FPS
• Slow motion video capture (720p @480 fps)
• ImMotion computational photography

• 30% improved graphics/video rendering and power reduction compared to previous generation
• Room-scale 6 DoF with SLAM
• Adreno foveation, featuring tile rendering, eye tracking, multiView rendering, fine grain preemption
• 2K x 2K @ 120Hz, for 2.5x faster display throughput
• Improved 6DoF with hand-tracking and controller support

• 3rd Generation Hexagon Vector DSP (HVX) for AI and imaging
• 3rd Generation Qualcomm All-Ways AwareTM Sensor Hub
• Hexagon scalar DSP for audio

• Support for 1.2 Gbps Gigabit LTE Category 18
• License Assisted Access (LAA)
• Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) shared radio spectrum
• Dual SIM-Dual VoLTE (DSDV)

• Multigigabit 11ad Wi-Fi with diversity module
• Integrated 2x2 11ac Wi-Fi with Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) support
• 11k/r/v: Carrier Wi-Fi enhanced mobility, fast acquisition and congestion mitigation
• Bluetooth 5 with proprietary enhancements for ultra-low power wireless ear bud support and direct audio broadcast to multiple devices

• Biometric authentication (fingerprint, iris, voice, face)
• User and app data protection
• Integrated use-cases such as integrated SIM, Payments, and more

• Qualcomm Aqstic audio codec(WCD934x):

• Dynamic range: 130dB, THD+N: -109dB
• Native DSD support (DSD64/DSD128), PCM up to 384kHz/32bit
• Low power voice activation: 0.65mA

Record:

• Dynamic range: 109dB, THD+N: -103dB
• Sampling: Up to 192kHz/24bit

• Four performance cores up to 2.8GHz (25 percent performance uplift compared to previous generation)
• Four efficiency cores up to 1.8GHz
• 2MB shared L3 cache (new)
• 3MB system cache (new)

10-nanometer (nm) LPP FinFET process technology