Snapdragon S4 out of stock until 2013, HTC suffers with his HTC One S

SoC Snapdragon S4 of the Qualcomm company undergoes a shortage due to the concern for the production of the TSMC fondeur with engraved 28 nm chips. HTC suffers the consequences with his HTC One.

It was already known that TSMC was aware of some concerns of performance with the production of chips engraved 28 nm especially for AMD and NVIDIA customers. They indeed use this technology for their next generation GPU and then undergo supply problems, the Taiwanese fondeur struggling to keep pace.

But now the situation worsens a little more and impact of other actors in the middle of the high-tech including including Qualcomm and its SoC Snapdragon S4 which is then out of stock. This chip fitted to many top smartphones of recent range, this problem affects then names of mobile phones such as HTC which must also find ways to continue to produce its terminals.

The Taiwanese manufacturer of smartphones has had to resign himself to replace Snapdragon S4 fitted the original HTC One S for a Snapdragon S3 on-fréquencé to level the difference in power between the two chips. And TSMC this situation of shortage of chips snapdragon S4 should keep to the last quarter of the year 2012 to return slowly to normal in the year 2013.

Attention so if you decide to buy an HTC One S or any other product "normally" boarding a Snapdragon S4, check that it has not traded against another less powerful chip.

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Qualcomm on the war footing for its Snapdragon S4

An update of Snapdragon S1 and S4 of the imminent arrival promises a war without thank you in the market for mobile processors.

Recently, we introduced its Nvidia Tegra processor 3. Lot of power for this new mobile architecture that has in the stomach. In front, Qualcomm is not resting on its laurels and will not to miss the rise of mobile devices. The new Snapdragon S4 has already been presented in a previous article, but now wants to communicate the depth of the energy consumption of the chip, although "super powerful" should draw acceptably in the battery.


The Snapdragon S4 could even be 63% more energy efficient than the previous generation of Qualcomm SoC in common tasks. Coupled with new batteries, also ever more efficient, it could ultimately enable mobile devices to enjoy autonomy lengthened. Other information given by the Vice President attached to the Marketing, Tim McDonough, Qualcomm is currently working with Microsoft for this ARM chip is optimized to perfectly run Windows 8.

As for references S4 Snapdragon chips, here's the list that you can recognize them in the technical equipment: MSM8660A, MSM8260A, MSM8630, MSM8230, MSM8627, MSM8227, and APQ8030 APQ8060A. Note that Qualcomm does not let its mobile processors to entry-level on the side of the road. The manufacturer preparing to refresh four models in the S1 (MSM7225A, MSM7625A, MSM7227A, MSM7627A).

Qualcomm, which also enjoys developing applications to demonstrate the power of its products, has added three upcoming games to the schedule in 2012 (The Ball, Galaga and Heroes Fight Special Edition) from its site, which will join its gaming space a hundred references already present.

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Snapdragon S4: Kraits quadricore in 2012

The information arrive on the next SoC at Qualcomm, "S4". If S1, S2 and S3 are already available, the S4 are expected in 2012. Los of our last meeting with Qualcomm, we learned that the S4 (which had not yet this name) dual core went out before the end of the year, now it is known that the quad core S4 are expected for early 2012, with probably the announcements at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February.

S4 is the future high of Qualcomm. The SoC will integrate support for the 4 G (LTE) technology and a CPU based on Kraits. Qualcomm is one of the rare companies to propose RAM architecture processors based on a core "House." If Scorpion, the current CPU, moves between the Cortex A8 and Cortex A9 at the level of performance, Kraits should place themselves between the Cortex A9 and Cortex future, A15. And as Qualcomm has historically more facilities to frequency than the others, this processor might be a good surprise. Typically, Qualcomm reached 1 GHz in 65 nm and 1.5 GHz in 45 nm there where the ARM chips are limited to 1.2 GHz in 45 nm. In the S4 range, should be one to four cores Kraits with a frequency that can reach 2.5 GHz 28 nm.

For the graphic part is an Adreno which will be part, with two or four "cores". Adreno is from chip of the redemption of the ATi range a few years ago and its performance are very correct in the mobile world. Some versions should be compatible with Direct3D 9.3 and thus directly with Windows 8 ARM version.

As seen, if NVIDIA will draw the first for the next generation of chips with Kal - El (future Tegra 3?), the competition is also.

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