Despite all the current crises, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon is looking ahead. “Technology will continue to advance,” said Amon at the start of IFA 2022 on Friday in Berlin. Despite the progressive networking of almost all devices, the smartphone will remain the center of the mobile landscape in the future. After some warm words for the fair in Berlin, things got a little more concrete with Snapdragon Connect and new partnerships.

With Snapdragon Connect, Amon introduced a new Qualcomm platform that is intended to connect different wireless communication channels. In addition to 5G mobile communications with speeds of up to 10 Gbps, Amon emphasized the importance of WiFi 7, which should reach up to 5.8 Gbps. The first central component of Snapdragon Connect will be the X70 5G modem, which Qualcomm announced back in the spring. It is expected in the new SoC Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which will be presented before the end of the year.

Alongside Amon, Won-Joon Choi, head of the R&D team for Samsung’s high-end smartphones, also took the stage and confirmed that more Snapdragon chips will be installed in the Galaxy-class devices in the future. In addition to smartphones and tablets, it is also expressly about wearables and PCs. In the mobile sector, this should be bad news for the self-developed Exynos SoCs, which could become less relevant.

Qualcomm develops chips with Meta

While Amon, as expected, remained silent on the Qualcomm-ARM litigation, the CEO announced two more partnerships at IFA that are set to be deepened. In the future, Qualcomm wants to work more closely with Facebook’s parent company Meta to promote the development of XR platforms. “By partnering with Meta, we are bringing together two of the Metaverse’s leaders to shape the future of computing for billions of people over the next few years,” said Amon.

Qualcomm technology, such as the Snapdragon XR2, is already being used in meta glasses such as the Quest 2. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg was not present in Berlin, but was brought into the hall via video to praise the future of the Metaverse. “We are working with Qualcomm on custom virtual reality chipsets powered by the Snapdragon XR platform for our other Quest products,” said Zuckerberg.

In the area of ​​sound, Qualcomm will cooperate more closely than before with Bose. Qualcomm’s S5 Audio SoC is to be used in upcoming true wireless headphones from Bose, and speakers and soundbars with the chip are also planned. The S5 platform is designed to ensure more robust connections between players and headphones or speakers, reduce power consumption and, last but not least, improve the sound of speech and music.

(sht)