Exynos from Samsung and Snapdragon from Qualcomm: The Details

Yesterday, I talked about Multi Core Processor System on Chips (MPSoC) and I also listed two market leaders in chip manufacturing and names of some devices within which these chips were being used. Now we will have a look at two more chip manufacturers who also are market leaders in the chip manufacturing space. You need to have an idea of all 4 manufacturers, as in future posts you will be able to understand easily when I mention the name of a particular chip.

Samsung

• As you already know from my previous posts, Samsung manufacturers chips and markets them under the brand name of 'Hummingbird' and 'Exynos'. While 'Hummingbird' is a single-core System on Chip and is actually a codename for 'Exynos 3110', the 'Exynos 4210' is a dual-core System on Chip and competes with the likes of Tegra 2 and OMAP SoCs. Do not get confused, when somebody says 'Hummingbird' is another name for 'Exynos'. Similar to the SoC offerings from the rest of the manufacturers, the 'Exynos 4210' also contains dual cores sourced from ARM (2 ARM Cortex A9s) sprinting at 1.2 Ghz. There is another variant of Exynos called the 'Exynos 4212' which also contains 2 ARM Cortex A9s but they are clocked at a frequency of 1.5 Ghz.
• Some of the famous smartphone devices which sport the 'Hummingbird (Exynos 3110)' and 'Exynos 4210' SoCs are 'Samsung Galaxy S' which uses the former SoC and 'Samsung Galaxy S2' which uses the latter SoC.
• There is another major difference between the 'Samsung Galaxy S' and the 'Samsung Galaxy S2'. As I already said, each SoC contains some other components like the CPU Instruction Set, the Memory Controller and the GPU and some other components in addition to the CPU. Well, the 'Galaxy S' uses a GPU sourced from 'Imagination Technologies' where as the 'Galaxy S2' uses a GPU sourced from 'ARM'. By now, you would have already figured out that knowledge only about the CPU alone will not be sufficient in deciding your purchase and that's absolutely RIGHT!!! (I will tell you why in my next post..!! ;-))

Qualcomm

• There are so many variants of SoCs manufactured by Qualcomm that Qualcomm itself had recently announced that it will classify its Snapdragon SoCs into only 4 categories. The 'Snapdragon S1', the 'Snapdragon S2', the 'Snapdragon S3' and yeah obviously!!! the 'Snapdragon S4'. Due to the combination of, CPUs clocked at various frequencies and the myriad varieties of GPUs used, there are so many variants of Qualcomm SoCs. But, only the S3 and the S4 relate to the dual-core varieties. What really differentiates Qualcomm SoCs from the rest of the bunch is that in its SoCs, the CPU and the GPU are not sourced from any company but manufactured by Qualcomm themselves!!! The CPUs are marketed under the brand name of 'Scorpion' and the GPUs are marketed under the brand name of 'Adreno'. Actually the 'Adreno' GPU business had been acquired from ATI Imageon. The S3 is clocked at various frequencies ranging from 1.2 Ghz to 1.7 Ghz and use 'Scorpion' CPU and 'Adreno' GPUs manufactured by Qualcomm themselves.
• Some of the famous smartphone devices which sport the 'Snapdragon S3' SoCs are 'HTC Sensation', 'HTC Sensation XE' and 'HP Touchpad'.
• While it has been mentioned that the 'Galaxy S2' uses Samsung's own Exynos SoC which contains dual-cores sourced from ARM, Samsung has some other versions of the same phone using the 'Snapdragon S3' chip sourced from Qualcomm. These phones are marketed under other names. The 'T-Mobile Galaxy S2' is one such phone that uses the 'Snapdragon S3' chip and the 'Galaxy Skyrocket' which is basically the 'Galaxy S2' with LTE is another one. I hope you guys got the subtle differences that I have been trying to highlight!!!!

Hmmm.. That completes, I think, what you need to know about dual-core processors. We'll move on tomorrow with GPUs i.e. Graphical Processing Units and why their consideration, in your purchase decision, is important. Stay tuned!!!