Qualcomm comes back via Snapdragon 820

Qualcomm's latest high-end SoC is featured in a slate of new flagship smartphones.

Qualcomm is having a great start to 2016. In 2015, the company's dominance as the go-to company for smartphone SoCs was shaken a bit following overheating issues with the Snapdragon 810. The processor eventually overcame those issues, but the damage to its image had been done and some companies either looked elsewhere or used their own chips, as Samsung did.

With the release of the Snapdragon 820, though, Qualcomm is once again the unequivocal top dog. The Verge calls Qualcomm "the biggest winner of Mobile World Congress 2016." All the high-profile flagship smartphones were running the latest Snapdragon. Samsung's Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, LG's G5 and Sony's Xperia X are all running the Snapdragon 820. Xiaomi's Mi 5 is also using the chip.

The Snapdragon 820 is a quad-core, 64-bit, 14nm chip clocked at 2.2GHz. Based on the ARM v8 architecture, it incorporates an Adreno 530 GPU and X12 LTE modem, and allows quick charging via Qualcomm's proprietary Quick Charge 3.0. The specs might not matter much to the average user, but they translate into incredible performance. The Verge says devices running on the 820 are "wicked fast."

As mainland China semiconductor companies look to increase their competitiveness with US companies, it looks like the Snapdragon 820 is another indication of the tough road ahead. Taiwan's market has been moderately successful in this area, with MediaTek growing at a healthy pace.

Now, companies in the mainland such as the Tsinghua Unigroup are looking to grow through acquisitions. Huawei has been using chips designed by its own subsidiary and it looks like Xiaomi is trying to do the same. The latter, though, wants to start by building chips for its budget smartphone, the Redmi line. This is an acknowledgement of how tough the high end of the market is to crack.

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