Qualcomm eyes smart cars with latest Snapdragon automotive chip

Update: Qualcomm chief executive Steven Mollenkopf has now confirmed at today’s press event at the CES 2016, that China’s Letv will be the first announced customer for the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC for smartphones.

Local connectivity inside the auto via Bluetooth supports content sharing between mobile devices brought into the vehicle and the car’s infotainment system.

When asked when phones shipping to the United States would in fact see the Qualcomm 820 inside them, Mollenkopf answered somewhat cryptically, “Soon. Never before has the unparalleled combination of integrated LTE cloud connectivity, powerful heterogeneous computing, leading-edge multimedia performance and breakthrough machine learning capabilities been delivered in a single chip, fully integrated, automotive grade solution”, said Patrick Little, senior vice president and general manager, automotive, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Furthermore, the Snapdragon 820A’s sensor integration provides cognitive awareness and vehicle self-diagnostics, supports ADAS features for improved vehicle safety systems, and provides location and navigation through GNSS and dead reckoning technologies.

This also means that it can be placed anywhere on a device, with the sensor capable of reading prints through glass, metal and sapphire.

The really cool part, though, comes in the form of the Le Max Pro’s Qualcomm-powered Snapdragon Sense fingerprint scanner.

Mollenkopf said that Letv will use the chip in its upcoming smartphone, dubbed the Le Max Pro.

First off, the Le Max Pro will be the first phone to use the company’s high-powered Snapdragon 820 chip – a chip that’s arguably comparable in power to that of the Apple iPad Pro tablet. The company also announced a new 820A processor for vehicles. The Audi win will see Qualcomms’ car-centric chipsets appear in the third-generation of MMX infotainment, with high-resolution graphics, LTE connectivity, and more.

The 602A isn’t the only Snapdragon processor headed to your vehicle – Mollenkopf also revealed a specialized version of the 820.

Mollenkopf also briefly mentioned Qualcomm’s drone flight system, Snapdragon Flight.