Skip to content

Snapdragon 845 Specs and Release Date Leaked, Kirin 970 too!

Snapdragon 845 mobile platform will reportedly be Qualcomm’s flagship SoC for 2018. Specifications of the successor of Snapdragon 835 has just appeared on the internet. According to the leak, the future chipset may pack ARM Cortex A75 CPUs instead of Qualcomm’s custom-made Kryo cores. In the disclosed spec sheet, the Snapdragon 845 is seen compared side-by-side with the upcoming Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 970.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Specifications

The Snapdragon 845 SoC is expected to come with a 64-bit octa-core processor. This will consist of four ARM Cortex A75 CPUs combined with four Cortex A53 ones. It seems like, Qualcomm may go for stock ARM architecture instead of its custom-made Kryo cores. The popular chip-maker did the same thing in its Snapdragon 810 chipset.

Snapdragon 845 Specs Compared with Huawei Kirin 970

ARM has not yet announced the Cortex A75 architecture officially. However, industry experts predict that the chip designer may soon unveil the successor of Cortex A73. The Cortex A75 will be optimized for the latest 10 nm FinFET process and come with significant upgrades over its predecessor.

The Kryo 280 cores of Snapdragon 835 or 820 are based on ARM Cortex A73 architecture. So, it is quite believable for the Snapdragon 845 to come with Cortex A75 CPUs. ARM may also make its upcoming architecture stable enough to cancel out the need of Qualcomm to build a custom core.


Coming to the graphics department, a brand new Adreno 630 GPU is expected to sit inside the Snapdragon 845. The upcoming SoC will be based on the advanced 10 nm FinFET process. While the leaked space-sheet suggests that this will be an LPE (Low Power Early) design, I think Qualcomm will probably opt for the more advanced LPP (Low Power Plus). However, the chances of seeing a 7 nm process are extremely low.

The Snapdragon 845 shall support up to 4 x 16 bit LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 2.1 storage. Connectivity-wise, the upcoming chipset will sport 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ad Wi-Fi, 1.2 Gbps 4G LTE Modem, 5 x 20 MHz carrier aggregation, 256-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), etc. In comparison, the Snapdragon 835 features 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, 1 Gbps 4G LTE Modem, 4 x 20 MHz carrier aggregation, and 64-QAM.

Speaking of the ISP (Image Signal Processor), the SD 845 will be able to handle up to two 25 MP cameras simultaneously.

Snapdragon 845: Release Date

Qualcomm is likely to launch the Snapdragon 845 SoC in Q1 2018. The Samsung Galaxy S9 will probably be the first smartphone to use it.

Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 970: Specs and Release Date

In the leaked spec sheet, the Snapdragon 845 is seen compared with the Kirin 970. Huawei’s upcoming chipset is likely to come with an octa-core setup. There will be four Cortex A73 CPUs and four A53 cores. The Kirin 970 will also be built using the 10 nm FinFET process.

Coming to the storage and connectivity, it will be similar to the Snapdragon 845. The only difference being no support for 802.11ad Wi-Fi. The camera compatibility of the Kirin 970 has remained undisclosed in the leak.

Huawei is expected to launch its next flagship SoC later this year.

nv-author-image

Abhishek Bhatnagar

Abhishek Bhatnagar, a known technology blogger & YouTuber from India. A Software Engineer by qualification, now he works as the editor-In-Chief, Webmaster, & Managing Director at Gadgets To Use. He runs a number of other technology websites as well.