back to article OM5G... Qualcomm teases next Snapdragon chip for phones: The 855 with a fingerprint Sonic Screwdriver, er, Sensor

The next top-end addition to Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor family, which powers millions upon millions of Android smartphones, will be the 855. And as you'd expect, this 64-bit Arm-compatible system-on-chip is heavy on the 5G and AI hype. It is due to arrive in phones in the first half of 2019. Your 5G network may arrive …

  1. Lorribot

    5G? what about the back hauL?

    Having multi Gig download is all well and good but what will the telcos put in as their backhaul from the towers? Bet they generally only do 1 GB, shared between all those cell phones.......

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 5G? what about the back hauL?

      Optical fiber is the obvious way but also expensive. It would involve a LOT of digging. You could also return to the lily pad net idea mentioned years and years ago and deploy base stations in e.g. every lamp post. These already have cabling facilities, with luck you can pull more fiber through the cable sleeves and into the base station..

      Since fog cuts into the bandwidth you can use free space optical links. Fog will reduce back haul efficiency but that is not a problem when handset bandwidth is reduced anyway.

      1. 080

        Re: 5G? what about the back hauL?

        You don't have to bury fibre, it works just as well in the air, but it's as ugly as hell

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    L5?

    Both Huawei and Broadcom provide L5 capable chips. Will this new Qualcomm chip also provide this? I cannot find any information on this from my searches.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Broadcasters are already doing this.

    As an example:

    https://www.liveu.tv/lu600

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    5G skeptics

    People aren't skeptical 5G won't work, they are skeptical that it is going to drive phone replacement demand.

    Though lately I've seen a lot of alarmist nonsense about 5G "death towers", so it looks more anti-science nutjobs will be out claiming 5G is somehow far more deadly than LTE, wifi, bluetooth and all the other terrible radiation we are bathing in daily. That might be a bigger problem than "skeptics".

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: 5G skeptics

      anti-science nutjobs will be out claiming 5G is somehow far more deadly than LTE, wifi, bluetooth and all the other terrible radiation we are bathing in daily.

      I heard that 400-700nm is the worst radiation wavelength...

      1. jmch Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: 5G skeptics

        Of course 5G is 25% more deadly than 4G. Right?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 5G skeptics

        "I heard that 400-700nm is the worst radiation wavelength."

        You jest but I believe around 300-400 really is. UV is ionising, for some atoms and molecules.

        One thing about believers in low level radiation nonsense is that their belief basically follows the pattern of religion or homeopathy. As one possibility after another is exploded, they invent new ones. OK, microwaves in general aren't harmful but the modulation of the wifi signal makes it dangerous. 50Hz has been around in our houses for years? It was safe until CFLs affected the waveform and made it hazardous.

        I wish I was making this stuff up. Alternatively, I wish I had a big business selling radiation detectors to the gullible.

      3. martinusher Silver badge

        Re: 5G skeptics

        >I heard that 400-700nm is the worst radiation wavelength...

        Trying to explain how electromagnetic radiation interacts with people is virtually impossible because its statistical -- the probability of damage goes up with frequency from effectively zero through quite likely to certain. Unfortunately most people don't do statistics, so they will take 'effectively zero' as an attempt by the lizard people to hoodwink them.

        Where I live its common to find small cell towers on top of streetlights. The irony of people protesting the dangers of radiation from those towers is impossible to explain.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Radiation nutjobs

          On last night's local news I saw a story on the electric utility in a nearby city that was installing "smart meters". They mentioned a woman who came to a city council meeting objecting to them claiming the usual list of non-specific symptoms when she lived in Colorado and a neighbor had a smart meter installed 70 feet from her house, and said she moved back home to get away from it and her symptoms improved.

          Then they had a utility spokesman on who said that it uses the same amount of power as a cell phone, and is active only once a day for about a second. I'm sure she'd find a reason that a single second's exposure to that smart meter was somehow worse for her that being anywhere in public where she is around other people, all of whom have cell phones, many of them in use as she walks by.

  5. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Band bingo

    The most significant outcome I see is that it's going to be much harder to find a phone that works well with your home provider plus any countries you travel too. Phones with global LTE coverage already cost a fortune. Now there's going to be all kinds of regional high-band offloading.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Band bingo

      "Phones with global LTE coverage already cost a fortune. "

      Unless you mean you want something that works with both CDMA and GSM I don't think you're right.

      Early 4g phones were quite expensive but a lot cheaper than a new iPhone. Many Far Eastern phones have "global" editions which cover all the usual bands. I paid £240 for mine.

      I expect 5g to get to reasonable prices about the time I need a replacement.

      1. Waseem Alkurdi

        Re: Band bingo

        Many Far Eastern phones have "global" editions which cover all the usual bands.

        The Pixel does this as well.

  6. HolySchmoley

    "Qualcomm teases next Snapdragon chip"

    How did the chip respond?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Qualcomm teases next Snapdragon chip"

      Initially she put up high resistance, but ultimately she delivered the goods.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "Qualcomm teases next Snapdragon chip"

        "Initially she put up high resistance, but ultimately she delivered the goods."

        But did she give lots of little signals first?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Qualcomm teases next Snapdragon chip"

      It's as annoying as the Americanism "drop". When in the UK a company drops a product, they stop supplying it. In the US it now usually means that they announce it, unless it's an older writer. I guess announce has too many letters.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: "Qualcomm teases next Snapdragon chip"

        I think that's because the US analogue is to "kill" a product. Drop means "drop a hint".

  7. Dave 126 Silver badge

    Ability to read wet fingerprints would be a nice feature to have ( part of my job involves cleaning things, so my hands are often wet and confuse my fingerprint scanner) but no cause for a new phone.

    What would tempt me is if Google update ARCore to take advantage of multiple cameras / ir grid projectors ( a la Project Tango) to generate accurate point clouds ( 3D scans) of rooms and objects.

  8. RainCaster

    I'm at that hotel where the Qualcomm PR event is happening. All I know is that 5G requires a *lot* of sub-woofers. The voices in my head have all concluded that 5G will be safe because it cannot penetrate my tin foil hat.

  9. RainCaster

    It's all about the bass

    I'm at the hotel where they are doing this big show, and all I can hear is the massive subwoofers from their presentations.

    But the voices in my head all approve of 5G because it cannot penetrate my tin foil hat.

    1. Roq D. Kasba

      Re: It's all about the bass

      So loud you have to repeat yourself, in fact ;-)

  10. Barrie Shepherd

    Security / Backdoor

    Great that mobile phone chip development continues but, given the recent 5Eyes/Australia/GCHQ, pressure for 'backdoor/compromised" access who will be independently determining that Qualcomm will not be engineering covert access to the chipset ready to be enabled when Canberra or Cheltenham send in their Technical Assistance notice?

    1. _LC_
      Alert

      Re: Security / Backdoor

      Qualcomm has to be considered 'open'. Every time somebody pokes their BLOBs, they end up with dozens of high risk vulnerabilities (exploitable remotely). It's always been this way with Qualcomm and it very much looks like they intent to keep it that way.

      1. Waseem Alkurdi

        Re: Security / Backdoor

        And the alternative?

        MediaTek is, well, MediaTek.

        Apple? Who knows what's hiding in there (though no exploits seem to be publicized)

        But imagine the horror, using an iPhone daily. Argghhhh.

        Nokia dumbphones? Probably, but even these are in short supply now.

        1. _LC_

          Re: Security / Backdoor

          If I recall it correctly, MediaTek is dropping the privileges in the kernel.

  11. Daniel Hall
    WTF?

    What the f**k

    Let me get this straight..

    We have 4G that goes a long way, kind of goes through some walls and doesnt get badly ruined in fog.

    4G is also FAST. as in, the SAME major cities where 5G will be implemented typically already have 4G doing 60mbp/s+ all day long with low latency.

    Who the HELL needs more than that speed on a mobile device?

    This feels like the 3D TV ballache from years ago. Why try and replace something with what is literally a gimmick.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: What the f**k

      Who the HELL needs more than that speed on a mobile device?

      No one: 5G is just a marketing name. The basic idea is to increase the number and density of cells so that more devices (mainly autonomous sensors) can use it in the IoH (internet of hacked devices). Oh, and all the 4K live video feeds from music concerts and football matches…

  12. Dave 126 Silver badge

    I remember when 3G was rolled out and networks were trying to work out how to get a return on it. Charging for clips of football highlights was mooted, but it didn't work out - there just wasn't that much that a typical consumer would want to do on a 1.5" screen that required lots of data.

    What changed was the arrival and mass adoption of full screen smartphones and the services that ran on them.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      What changed was the arrival and mass adoption of full screen smartphones

      By then (2008) they'd already given up on the premium data services. The increasingly ubiquitous wifi did for their grand 3G schemes, including the perennial white elephant of video calls: people weighed up the cost of a data contract over the alternatives and this effectively created a ceiling for data charges. Most European countries had enough operators that at least one of them was prepared to offer data only contracts for dongles and myfi devices.

      In the US the smartphone, coupled with the lack of competition, did drive data contracts, investment infrastructure and harmonisation on UMTS and then LTE. But it was really the lack of competition that kept prices high.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      >and networks were trying to work out how to get a return on it.

      Remember 3G video calls? The feature that no smartphone had/has.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        The feature that no smartphone had/has.

        My Ericsson T68 could do them. But, at € 0,70 a minute and being dependent upon the other caller and their network supporting it, it was too expensive to do. Even with ubiquitous VoIP and larger pipes I still almost never do video calls. I guess it was the blockchain / VR of its day: required lots of expensive technology but was really little more than a gimmick.

        1. katrinab Silver badge

          Lots of people do make video calls, but they use something like Facetime, Skype or Whatsapp to do them.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            >Lots of people do make video calls, but they use something like Facetime, Skype or Whatsapp to do them.

            Those are not video phone calls.

            Neither Android nor iOS ever implemented video phone calls. (Probably because at the time it was too difficult for either company, who had next to no telecoms experience.Apple couldn't even work out MMS.)

        2. keith_w

          Not a European, so how do you pronounce the sub-whole number Euro numbers? e.g. the € 0,70 mentioned above?

          1. katrinab Silver badge

            Seventy cents.

          2. Waseem Alkurdi

            @keith_w

            Make that two of us.

            @katrinab

            That's $0.70 ^_^

  13. Aladdin Sane

    signals can't travel very far nor penetrate walls and fog

    "NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE MESENGERS ABOT THEIR DUTY"

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: signals can't travel very far nor penetrate walls and fog

      Penetration is a combination of frequency and medium. But, for a while, networks have been pushing "pico" and "femto" cells into buildings to improve coverage.

    2. fedoraman

      Re: signals can't travel very far nor penetrate walls and fog

      DON’T ASK US ABOUT:

      rocks

      troll’s with sticks

      battery drain

      All sorts of dragons

      Mrs. Cake

      Huje green things with teeth

      Any kinds of black dogs with orange eyebrows

      Rains of spaniel’s.

      fog.

      Mrs. Cake

  14. devTrail

    What about AI

    It's a pity that so much hype about an unnecessary 5G has foreshadowed everything else. What does it mean AI acceleration? How will they provide access to the hardware functions? Custom APIs? OpenCL implementations? Modified torch like libraries or something else?

    1. _LC_

      Re: What about AI

      "How will they provide access to the hardware functions?"

      You want to access YOUR hardware? What makes you think it's yours? Ha ha ha - BLOB.

    2. katrinab Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: What about AI

      AI means, computer program that contains if statements.

      Computer-program-with-if-statements acceleration means a faster chip.

  15. tempemeaty

    I'll just leave this here...

    Hundreds Of Birds Dead During 5G Experiment In The Hague, Netherlands

    https://www.sagaciousnewsnetwork.com/hundreds-of-birds-dead-during-5g-experiment-in-the-hague-netherlands/

    1. katrinab Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: I'll just leave this here...

      https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/5g-cellular-test-birds/

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'll just leave this here...

      I am left unsure whether that was meant to be funny or not, because on the whole commentards are not people who go for fantasy world conspiracy theory blogs.

      Or perhaps I really should check out whether exposure to multi-gigahertz radiation in my garden really did turn the grass brown this summer.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like