Smart phone market has been dominated by ARM processor and with more and more feature sets being integrated into it, silicon manufacturers see the needs to have more powerful processor especially for high end smart phones. Good news now, Qualcomm has announced its readiness to have dual-core version of Snapdragon processor targeted for the market. Named as MSM8260 and MSM8660, they are both dual-core processors integrated with HSPA+/CDMA2000 1xEV-DO revision B as a powerful SoC for mobile computing.



With each of the CPU core running at 1.2GHz, the solution is far more sufficient to handle any mobile computing while moving around without compromising its usability with relatively lower power consumption as compared to X86 architecture. Besides, both of them are enhanced with internal GPU core with 2D/3D hardware acceleration compliant to Open GL ES 2.0 and Open VG 1.1 standards. So, there is no doubt when comes to handle full HD 1080p video decode and even encoding. More importantly, these MSM (Mobile Station Modem) processors have been enhanced with HSPA+ as well as CDMA network capability that will definitely simplify board design while able to shrink down form factor as well as BOM (Bill of Material) cost.

No pricing information yet, both MSM8260 and MSM8660 are already in sampling stage now and we should expect it to compete against Intel Atom X86 architecture even in netbook or tablet PC market where smaller form factor and lower power consumption are preferred.