At the 4G/5G summit in Hong Kong, chipmaker Qualcomm has announced the new Snapdragon 636 SoC for mid-range smartphones. An upgrade over Snapdragon 630 SoC that was launched earlier this year in May, the new chipset brings significant improvements across areas such as performance, gaming and displays.
“The introduction of the Snapdragon 636 Mobile Platform allows OEMs to enjoy a smooth transition from the Snapdragon 660 and 630 Mobile Platforms while supporting the deployment of superior functionality and performance to end users,” said Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. 
Built on 14nm process, Qualcomm says that Snapdragon 636 SoC is 40 percent faster than Snapdragon 630. With 64-bit architecture, the new chipset features eight Kryo 260 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. It is definitely an upgrade over Snapdragon 630 that runs eight ARM Cortex A53 cores at 2.2GHz. With support for up to 8GB LPDDR4 RAM, the Snapdragon 636 chipset is backed with an upgraded Adreno 509 GPU, which the chipmaker claims to improve browsing and gaming performance by 10 percent. 
If you look at most flagship smartphones these days, you’ll notice that most of them now flaunt ultra-wide edge-to-edge displays. The Snapdragon 636 officially brings support for full HD 18:9 displays, running at a resolution of 2160×1080 pixels. It also comes with support for Assertive Display technology that optimizes the display visibility to improve readability in all lighting conditions. 
Smartphone camera technology has improved over the years, and the new chipset comes with Qualcomm Spectra 160 image sensor processing and Clear Sight camera features. It also supports camera resolutions up to 24-megapixels with zero shutter lag. The chipset also comes with support for 4K UHD video capture (30fps), and full HD video capture (120fps).
“Manufacturers can use the same modem and camera architecture to enable fast and efficient testing and calibration, cutting down on significant resources or time normally required when developing products on brand new platforms,” Kondap added. 
In terms of connectivity, Snapdragon 636 supports dual-SIM 4G LTE with VoLTE HD voice calling, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5.0, and Snapdragon X12 4G LTE modem, with peak download speeds of up to 600Mbps. With the chipset, you also set support for Qualcomm Aqstic audio codec for Hi-Fi audio on the go (up to 192kHz/24bit support). Lastly, Snapdragon 636 also supports Quick Charge 4.0, and USB 3.1 connectivity. Qualcomm expects to ship the chipsets to manufacturers by November, and we are likely to see smartphones powered by the chipset in late 2017 or early 2018.

{BGR}