Snapdragon Mid-Tier Processors Get Boost with Cortex-A720 Architecture

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Qualcomm just dropped a new mid-range smartphone SoC, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3. This is the second iteration of Qualcomm’s down-market ‘S’ tier Snapdragon 7 parts, and it’s essentially the entry-level tier for most Qualcomm-powered handsets in North America.

What’s interesting about this latest iteration is that Qualcomm didn’t just reuse an existing die. Instead, they created a whole new one, which allows them to upgrade the 7s family to use Arm’s current Armv9 CPU cores. The rest of the chip also gets a refresh, with bits and pieces of Qualcomm’s latest IPs scattered throughout.

Let’s take a look at the specs. The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 has a 1+3+4 design, with one prime core, three performance cores, and four efficiency cores. The prime core can turbo up to 2.5GHz, while the other A720 cores can reach 2.4GHz. The efficiency cores are based on Arm’s current A520 design and can boost up to 1.8GHz.

Compared to the outgoing Snapdragon 7s Gen 2, this new chip represents a significant upgrade, with a 20% improvement in CPU performance. Graphics are driven by an Adreno GPU, but Qualcomm isn’t sharing many details about it. The video decode block is a bit dated, lacking AV1 decoding, but the chip does support H.265 and VP9.

The Hexagon NPU block gets some love, with the addition of INT4 support for low-precision client inference. This is new to the Snapdragon 7s family, and Qualcomm is pushing for local (on-device) LLM execution. AI performance is expected to improve by 30% compared to the 7s Gen 2.

The chip also gets a 32-bit memory controller, which supports older LPDDR4X as well as newer LPDDR5. The maximum memory bandwidth depends on the memory type used, but it’s identical to the 7s Gen 2.

On the camera front, the 7s Gen 3 still has a trio of 12-bit Spectra ISPs, but the maximum resolution in zero shutter lag and burst modes has been bumped up to 64MPix. Video recording capabilities are the same as the 7s Gen 2.

Wireless communication is handled by an integrated Snapdragon 5G modem, which supports both Sub-6 and mmWave bands. The maximum theoretical throughput is 2.9Gbps. The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth block is also new, with Bluetooth 5.4 support.

Finally, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is built on TSMC’s N4P process, which offers a 12% improvement in power efficiency. Xiaomi will be the first to launch a new phone with the chip, followed by other usual suspects like Realme and Sharp.