Qualcomm's overheating 810 chips?

[witeken]

Wearables are silly, IMO. Just a desperate attempt from the mobile industry to find the "next big goldmine."

I've read comments from people who would disagree with you.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Yep. We've had good enough computers, good enough tablets, and now we have good enough smartphones.

Where do we go from here???

Intel is still asking that question. The semiconductor industry is changing that's for sure. I think small, low power chips with lots of custom analog will be very important for biometrics and the IoT. Also automobiles will continue to contain more electronics every generation. Software really is the future though and that is where a lot of the innovation will occur.

 

[III-V]

You mean non-Intel FinFETs, right?

Anything goes. Wish I could get an SoC that didn't have so many compromises... but all of them are quite crippled in at least one regard.

Yep. We've had good enough computers, good enough tablets, and now we have good enough smartphones.

Where do we go from here???

We're quite a ways off from "good enough" phones, IMO.

 

[CakeMonster]

I can think of several short term goals for phones that they can't do today but which seemed quite within reach in a short time frame until now.

4K 60fps graphics and video playback with full color depth (4:4:4).

Camera with 4K 60 fps video recording with decent bitrate and fast enough storage to record it.

Streaming that live wired (and long term wirelessly) to any other device/monitor/tv.

Using every typical desktop app (multitasking) at that resolution streamed to a 4K monitor (basically the phone replaces your desktop for everyone but the most dedicated professional users doing 3d modeling). So running a full office suite + browser with 50 tabs + a low/medium demanding 3d game (4gb ram would prob be a minimum).

That's what I want now. And it seemed we were so close to it if we extrapolated from mobile CPU and display trends up until the Snapdragon 800. It was moving so fast until the brakes suddenly came on disappointing us with 801/805 progressing slower than expected. And now with 20nm and 810 which was both a tick and tock and 64bit as a cherry on top we are screeching to a halt. So much for the euphoria of only 12-15 months ago....

Longer term I'd have expected 8K and 120hz output (and camera recording that) but I can't really demand this now since it exceeds the most recent display techs (dp1.3/hdmi2) and its probably coming years later than what I would have believed a year ago.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

I can think of several short term goals for phones that they can't do today but which seemed quite within reach in a short time frame until now.

4K 60fps graphics and video playback with full color depth (4:4:4).

Camera with 4K 60 fps video recording with decent bitrate and fast enough storage to record it.

Streaming that live wired (and long term wirelessly) to any other device/monitor/tv.

Using every typical desktop app (multitasking) at that resolution streamed to a 4K monitor (basically the phone replaces your desktop for everyone but the most dedicated professional users doing 3d modeling). So running a full office suite + browser with 50 tabs + a low/medium demanding 3d game (4gb ram would prob be a minimum).

That's what I want now. And it seemed we were so close to it if we extrapolated from mobile CPU and display trends up until the Snapdragon 800. It was moving so fast until the brakes suddenly came on disappointing us with 801/805 progressing slower than expected. And now with 20nm and 810 which was both a tick and tock and 64bit as a cherry on top we are screeching to a halt. So much for the euphoria of only 12-15 months ago....

Longer term I'd have expected 8K and 120hz output (and camera recording that) but I can't really demand this now since it exceeds the most recent display techs (dp1.3/hdmi2) and its probably coming years later than what I would have believed a year ago.

Yeah but none of those are new use cases. Phones are already doing QHD@60Hz, which is more than enough. The iPhone 6 has a ~720p resolution and it is selling like hotcakes. Syncing your files to the "cloud" already enables you to spread your workflow across multiple devices.

For taking selfies and updating statuses, we already have more than enough power. That is the fundamental problem with microprocessor design in general today. There is nothing to compete on except price since performance is good enough.

 

[escrow4]

Hmmm, I'm trying out the Nokia 208 soon. Thinking of going back to dumbphones:

http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/208-dual-sim/specifications/

Its actually 3G and is $39 here.

 

[Idontcare]

Anything goes. Wish I could get an SoC that didn't have so many compromises... but all of them are quite crippled in at least one regard.

We're quite a ways off from "good enough" phones, IMO.

Absolutely true. We haven't even begun to dip into the embedded "wet-ware" generation of integrated devices. It is coming though.

 

[RussianSensation]

For its intended function - email, web browsing, messaging, music, video watching, Note 4 and Apple 6/6+ are good enough for 95% of the world. The part about the smartphone powering 4K, 4K surround, wirelessely streaming PS4 level graphics to TVs and various devices -- well that is 5 years away at least. Even modern PCs cannot easily stream true 4K video and lossless audio, so how in the world could a small SoC do it?

For the next 2-3 years smartphones are going to be pure boredom, with the usual bump in specs but hardly a major change in their usage model. As I said, the major smartphone revolution has already happened. Now it's just a game of marketing/specs and well it's a "no brainer" for people to get a new "$0-199" phone on a new 2 year contract. Fundamentally, we have already hit a brick wall with how a smartphone functions. The next revolution of a smartphone will require cutting edge technologies that are exponentially more advanced than anything on the roadmaps in the next 2-3 years.

It's not as if in 2015/2016 we will have a phone that could read your blood pressure, blood sugar levels, your body temperature, red blood cell count, hemoglobin levels, and when used as a navigation system on top of your car's dashboard be able to perform deep learning and neural network functions in real time, etc.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8824/nvidia-ces-2015-press-conference-liveblog

The "smartphone" itself keeps evolving but it's NO longer changing our lives like moving from say an old Nokia to a Note 2/Samsung S2 was. Yes, people have preferences for different PPI and screen sizes, but the fundamental function of the smartphone has not changed much since Google Now and Siri were introduced.

Smartphone tech itself is also all boring. Micro-4/3rds cameras and pocketable Canon GX7 blow any smartphone away. I mean they haven't even been able to put a solar panel on a smartphone so that it never needs to be recharged. It's a lot easier to play the spec game cuz consumers love numbers, but that's not particularly revolutionary -- it's simply the minimum expected. Even once 4, 5 and 8K smartphones come out, it will be mostly worthless bragging rights checkmark as 1440p on 5-5.7 inch screen already has an insanely high PPI.

 

[exar333]

For its intended function - email, web browsing, messaging, music, video watching, Note 4 and Apple 6/6+ are good enough for 95% of the world. The part about the smartphone powering 4K, 4K surround, wirelessely streaming PS4 level graphics to TVs and various devices -- well that is 5 years away at least. Even modern PCs cannot easily stream true 4K video and lossless audio, so how in the world could a small SoC do it?

For the next 2-3 years smartphones are going to be pure boredom, with the usual bump in specs but hardly a major change in their usage model. As I said, the major smartphone revolution has already happened. Now it's just a game of marketing/specs and well it's a "no brainer" for people to get a new "$0-199" phone on a new 2 year contract. Fundamentally, we have already hit a brick wall with how a smartphone functions. The next revolution of a smartphone will require cutting edge technologies that are exponentially more advanced than anything on the roadmaps in the next 2-3 years.

It's no as if in 2015/2016 we will have a phone that could read your blood pressure, blood sugar levels, your body temperature, red blood cell count, hemoglobin levels, etc. The "smartphone" itself keeps evolving but it's NO longer changing our lives like moving from say an old Nokia to a Note 2/Samsung S2 was.

This.

There isn't anything my Snapdragon 800 phone can't do, and it's 1+ years old. I don't need more than 1080P display either...

Sure, better cameras and oled screens are an improvement, but not significant. You won't get dslr quality picture without proper glass/sensor (years away, if ever) and screens will come and go.

The current gen of phones are our 'Sandy Bridge' gen of sorts, expect micro improvements for the next few years. Battery life is what they should be focusing on....

 

[Piroko]

I can think of several short term goals for phones that they can't do today but which seemed quite within reach in a short time frame until now.

4K 60fps graphics and video playback with full color depth (4:4:4).

Camera with 4K 60 fps video recording with decent bitrate and fast enough storage to record it.

afaik Snapdragon 800 is already 4k30 capable. The bigger holdback imho is that most phones do not have working OIS.

Longer term I'd have expected 8K and 120hz output (and camera recording that) but I can't really demand this now since it exceeds the most recent display techs (dp1.3/hdmi2) and its probably coming years later than what I would have believed a year ago.

See my point about OIS, I would much prefer massively better image stabilization and low light performance, but that is impossible to combine with the current anorexia trend of smartphones.

Honestly, faster CPUs has dropped off my wishlist. Better reception, better camera, longer battery life, better displays - that is by far more important to me than higher performance in the three apps that are not bottlenecked by network traffic or EMMC.