Qualcomm unveils new Snapdragon chips, quad-core on deck

Qualcomm on Monday announced its next generation Snapdragon chips for smartphones and tablets. These dual-core and quad-core chips will put Qualcomm back in an arms race with Nvidia, which is grabbed key design wins.

In smartphones and mobile computing, the latest devices are powered by Qualcomm and Nvidia chips. Qualcomm's latest effort will offer 2.5Ghz per core and deliver better power performance. The chipsets will be single- dual- and quad-core versions with built in graphics and integrated LTE.

Qualcomm said in a statement that its family of Snapdragon chips will support WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, FM, near field communication (NFC) and stereoscopic 3D. Sampling for some of the latest Snapdragons will begin in the second quarter and stretch through early 2012.

The headliner of the group is the new quad-core processor (APQ8064). This chip will arrive in early 2012.

Separately, Qualcomm said its Snapdragon platform will allow for instant streaming of Netflix on Android devices. Netflix video decoding will be handled by hardware in an effort to save batter life and improve quality.