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Qualcomm's 64-bit Snapdragon suffering from "hard to solve" issues

By Kenny Yeo - on 5 Dec 2014, 10:07am

Qualcomm's 64-bit Snapdragon suffering from "hard to solve" issues

When Apple launched its 64-bit A7 SoC last year, Qualcomm was reportedly taken by surprise, with an unnamed source within the company say, "The 64-bit Apple chip hit us in the gut". And at MWC earlier this year, Qualcomm responded quickly by announcing its own 64-bit Snapdragon processors - the Snapdragon 610 and 615. It was also reported earlier this year that devices sporting these new chips will debut later this year, but this has not happened yet.

The reason, according to Business Korea, is that the new processors from Qualcomm are facing "hard to solve" problems including overheating, RAM controller issues and driver errors involving the Adreno GPU. 

Just to be clear, this does not affect Qualcomm's existing 64-bit processors such as the Snapdragon 410 used in the HTC Desire 510. However, the Snapdragon 410 is an entry-level processor and was not designed to compete with Apple's high-end A7 and A8 processors like the Snapdragon 610 and 615 are.

This is proving to be a problem not just for Qualcomm, but also for the companies who rely on them for chips, namely LG, Samsung and HTC. Although both LG and Samsung have their own processors, they have thus far been inferior to Qualcomm's offerings and are not 64-bit ready yet. Samsung is reportedly working a 64-bit version of its Exynos chip, but it would not be ready until some time next year. So without Qualcomm's high-end 64-bit Snapdragon processors, LG, Samsung and HTC have no 64-bit rival to Apple's latest iPhones.

Source: AppleInsider

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