Feature Articles

Snapdragon 845 will deliver 300% more AI performance, 4K HDR imaging and more

By Vijay Anand - 10 Dec 2017

AI, Immersion and Connectivity

On-device AI to deliver more immersive experiences

Once a domain of cloud computing, artificial intelligence is steadily moving from the cloud to the edge devices themselves to act on real-time inputs with far lower latency and higher reliability. Plus, you can be better assured of privacy with on-device AI processing.

This steady handoff has been taking place for some while now, but it’s more pertinent than ever before for the AI to be a real game changer to bring about advanced image processing for real-time video style transfers (instead of it being a post processing option), portraiture and single camera bokeh (to reduce bill-of-material costs and make sleeker devices), Face ID (similar to iPhone X), more natural personal assistant, natural speech processing, eXtended Reality (XR, which refers to AR, VR and MR combined), new gaming experiences and advances in health and fitness monitoring. Also, according to Qualcomm:-

Snapdragon 845 improves voice-driven smart assistants with improved always-on keyword detection and ultra-low-power voice processing thanks to the performance from the Qualcomm Aqstic audio codec (WCD9341) and low-power audio subsystem, so users can interact with their devices using their voice all day.

In short, AI will help to achieve more immersive user experiences. If some of these aspects sound familiar, it’s because Huawei’s latest Kirin 970 chipset has been making waves recently with its dedicated neural processing unit that claims to assist on some of these aspects too.

Having said that, did you know that the Snapdragon 845 is the third generation of mobile AI platform? Sure enough, digging back at the Snapdragon 820 reminded us that its Hexagon 680 DSP laid the foundation of AI, machine learning and inferencing on a mobile platform. Building on that is the Hexagon 682 on the Snapdragon 835 and now a Hexagon 685 that brings with is a significant boost in AI processing speeds; Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 845 can outpace the Snapdragon 835 up to three times in processing throughput. Of course, this isn’t only due to the beefed up Hexagon 685 DSP, but also the combined uplift from the newer VPU and CPU computational engines that developers can target on the fly.

The slide provides a quick look at which computational engines are adept at processing different instruction sets.

What about the software stack, how ready is that to tackle AI? Snapdragon’s Neural Processing Engine (NPE) is a software accelerated runtime that assists in the execution of deep neural networks (DNNs) on device and it now has an updated support network:-

In addition to the existing support for Google’s TensorFlow and Facebook’s Caffe/Caffe2 frameworks, the Snapdragon Neural Processing Engine (NPE) SDK now supports Tensorflow Lite and the new Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX), making it easy for developers to use their framework of choice, including Caffe2, CNTK and MxNet. Snapdragon 845 also supports Google’s Android NN API.

The NPE is also capable enough to control which computational resource to use at its disposal to complete the task at hand efficiently

Qualcomm's end-goal for AI in 2018 with the Snapdragon 845.

 

True Immersion – Capturing life experiences and eXtending Realities (XR)

With the updated Spectra 280 image signal processor (ISP) and the new Adreno 630 visual processing subsystem, Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 845 processing platform enables consumers to capture cinema-quality videos, blurring the lines between physical and virtual worlds.

While you were able to capture 4K resolution on smartphones for some years now, the quality and capability of your 4K captures have been steadily improving over the years. Here’s a timeline of how Snapdragon processors have progressed in in capture capabilities over the last 4 years:-

Very soon, when the first Snapdragon 845 based devices hit retail, you’ll not only be able to playback UltraHD Premium content, you will even be able to capture in UltraHD Premium standard - a first in the mobile industry, thanks to the new Spectra 280 ISP. How does this improve over standard 4K content? UltraHD Premium standard as laid down by the UHD Alliance will require 4K content to have greater color volume by capturing in greater color depth (10 bits vs. the typical 8 bits), wider color gamut (Rec.2020 color representation) and high dynamic range (HDR) for greater luminance (Rec.2020 HDR standard). To get a better idea how each aspect improves color volume, here’s an animation Qualcomm has put together:-

Of course to truly appreciate the UltraHD Premium content you’ve captured (imagine over a billion shade of colors), you’ll need to view on an UltraHD Premium certified display. You can read more about TV options with this certification here and here.

The Spectra 280 ISP is capable of image capture at 4K @ 60fps, FHD @ ~120fps and 720p HDR10 @ 480fps (slow-mo videos). Other features that in the imaging department are Multiframe Noise Reduction at 16-megapixel/60fps, Motion Compensated Temporal Filtering, Accelerated Image Stabilization, and ImMotion computational photography and video post-processing. ImMotion videos work pretty much like a cinemagraph as you can see in this below example:-

Not only does the Spectra 280 ISP take your photography to the next level, Qualcomm claims that images captured with devices equipped with the Snapdragon 845 can reach up to 100+ rating in the popular DXOMark Mobile Image Quality Benchmark. We can’t wait to experience it first-hand. Meanwhile, the ISP has also had other architectural updates and coupled with the updated process technology, Qualcomm also claims up to 30% power reduction for video capture!

Here’s a parting slide to sum up the core improvements to the image/video capture capabilities of a Snapdragon 845 device:-

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