There beats a heart of Dragon with in every Smart Device Date:   Thursday , August 04, 2011 The new buzz in mobility is all about smart devices — smartphones and tablets. And mobile chipmaker Qualcomm is betting big on this newly emerged market with its Snapdragon platform. Dr. Sandeep Sibal, Country Manager and VP – Business Development, Qualcomm India & South Asia talked about the platform, the opportunity and its plans for Indian market. The market opportunity There are 40 million mobile Internet users in India. There is a strong demand for data from tier 2 and tier 3 cities. There are said to be 28 million Facebook users, of which, 30 percent are on mobile. About 20 photos uploaded every second, and mobile users are two times more active. Qualcomm has always boasted of unparalleled system integration and having this best-in-class asset is now a key advantage for the company. The benefits of integration include lower system costs, less engineering and faster time to market — over 745 devices launched in fiscal 2010 have a smaller footprint (about 10-20 percent smaller), and are power efficient (up to 35 percent better). Today over a 100 plus commercial devices have been announced by various players like Sony Ericcson, Samsung, Acer, HTC and more that will that use Snapdragon. There are said to be 200 plus more in design, and 30 companies with tablet designs are deemed underway. Snapdragon currently powers eight tablet models. Snapdragon Processors what is in store? There are many new Snapdragon processors ready to hit the market in next few months. The Snapdragon asynchronous dual and quad core family consists of the Snapdragon MSM 8Χ60. It features dual Scorpion CPU of 1.5GHz each, asynchronous cores, Adreno 220 GPU, HD 1080p capture and playback, Dolby 5.1, stereoscopic 3D capture and playback, and a comprehensive range of 3G. The Snapdragon next gen ‘Krait’ processor, expected to be launched in the last quarter of 2011, features next gen Krait architecture. Other features include single/dual/quad Krait CPU up to 2.5GHz, Adreno dual/quad GPU, full 1080p display support, stereoscopic 3D capture and playback, and an unparalleled range of 3G/4G. Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon has superior CPU micro-architecture. In contrast, competitors “push” to achieve performance. The Adreno GPU provides a superior graphics performance with smooth, responsive, customized UI on multiple operating systems. There are hours of game play between charges due to superior mobile GPU architecture. As of now, Qualcomm is offering over 100 plus games on Snapdragon — way more than any other platform. Snapdragon also enhances video quality and run time over Internet. The company is also the first to provide hardware acceleration for Flash and HTML5 videos — first to provide in-page playback of HTML5 videos as well as stutter free flash video playback. We also have OS platform leadership. Over 60 percent of Android devices today are powered by Qualcomm. All Windows Phone devices launched are being powered by Snapdragon, as are the new webOS devices. Modem evolution and technology leadership In HSPA+, we have had 103 launches, 148 network commitments, and 13 multi-carriers. As of August 2010, we have been offering DC-HSPA+ 42Mbps. In Rev A and B, we have 107 commercial networks with 33 percent growth year-on-year. There are seven KDDI Rev B devices. Qualcomm moved to EV-DO Rev B in Jan. 2010. In LTE, we have had 20 launches and have 208 network commitments, besides, 14 LTE TDD trials. Our presence in 4G LTE has been since November 2010 and Snapdragon advantages include purpose built CPU; Asynschronous dual core architecture; Best-in-class power consumption; unmatched system integration; widest OS platform support and more. Road Ahead In India, Qualcomm Snapdragon has had sufficient traction, with six models launched during 2010 — Acer Liquid, Sony Ericsson XperiaX10, HTC Desire, Acer Liquid Ferrari Edition, Dell Streak and HTC HD7. In 2011, as of May, we have 13 models launched — HTC Mozart, HTC Desire HD, HTC Desire Z, Dell Venue, Dell Venue Pro, OliveSmartV-S300, Acer Liquid Metal, HTC Incredible S, Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY, Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, HTC Desire S, Acer Iconia Smart and Spice MI 410. Snapdragon in India in 2012 will likely be in high-end smartphones as well as tablets. These would coincide with the launch of 4G/LTE networks. The apps would include Augmented Reality, Movies on the go (Netflix), console quality gaming and stereoscopic 3D.