Qualcomm adds smartphone power to auto

Qualcomm rolls out chips for the automotive market based on the Snapdragon 820.

Chip giant Qualcomm announced a new family of automotive processors and a design win at the CES 2016. The company aims to shift the pace of development in the smartphone market to the automotive arena with modular designs.

Design cycles for the Internet of Things are speeding up and OEMs are using modules to enable more innovation, said CEO Steve Mollenkopf said during CES press day. To bring advanced connectivity to the car sector, Qualcomm announced a modular SoC based on its Snapdragon 820 processor—the 820A and 820Am.

"The 820A uses the same blend of technologies as the Snapdragon 820, but is optimized for the form factor and unique requirements of the automotive application," said Mollenkopf. "It has a suite of technologies that allow car manufacturers to take advantage of all proximity, connectivity and sensor data, and blends that into unique capabilities."

The 14nm FinFET Snapdragon 820A SoC node runs a 64-bit Qualcomm Kryo CPU, an Adreno 530 GPU and a Hexagon 680 DSP with Hexagon Vector eXtension. The Snapdragon 820Am SoC integrates a 4G LTE modem with 600Mbps downlink and 150Mbps uplink for HD video streaming, or for use as an 802.11ac Wi-Fi hotpot for mobile devices inside the car, and vehicle-to-vehicle, -infrastructure and -pedestrian communications.

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