In October 2023, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was introduced, powering high-end Android smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and the OnePlus 12.
The next generation flagship chipset from Qualcomm, a company whose SoCs power almost a third of smartphones worldwide, is called the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. A new update on the SoC, which is probably going to power future high-end Android phones, has been released by the business. Later in the year, at the Snapdragon Summit in October, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip will be released. This corresponds with the standard release cycle that Qualcomm uses for their flagship mobile platform. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and OnePlus 12 are two examples of high-end Android smartphones powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which was introduced during the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii in October 2023.
The chipset will ship in October 2024, according to a video that Qualcomm’s Chief Marketing Officer Don McGuire uploaded on X (previously Twitter) on Wednesday during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.
The executive reaffirmed that Qualcomm’s proprietary Oryon CPU, which was initially unveiled at the Snapdragon Summit in 2022, will be included in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 smartphone. “October is when the Snapdragon Summit takes place,” MGuire stated. “With our Oryon CPU, our mobile platforms will be reinvented, and there will be some really cool stuff.” According to the CEO, the company would be introducing an upgraded Neural Processing Unit (NPU) in addition to its “supercharged” Oryon CPU. He remarked, “I’m sure you guys can’t wait to hear about our Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 announcement, which is going to be a killer combo.” “Due in October of 2024.”
Although there aren’t many specifications available, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is anticipated to be created utilizing TSMC’s 3nm manufacturing process—the same method that underpins Apple’s A17 Pro chipsets. It will include the Oryon CPU from the business, which was introduced for Snapdragon platforms in 2022. Oryon cores are also used in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite platform for AI PCs, which was unveiled at the Snapdragon Summit last year.
Future top Android phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S25, Xiaomi 15 series, and Asus Zenfone 11 are anticipated to be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor. October of last year saw the release of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Qualcomm’s current flagship mobile platform. Phones such as the OnePlus 12 and Galaxy S24 Ultra are powered by this processor.
This week at MWC 2024, Qualcomm also debuted a number of new generative AI features for Android handsets and launched a Qualcomm AI Hub that provides more than 75 AI models that have been optimized for its platforms.
According to Counterpoint Research, the chipmaker is the second-largest player in the worldwide smartphone chipset industry, with a 28 percent share as of the third quarter of 2023, after MediaTek.
