Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC details leaked, points to reworked CPU clusters, 32-bit support removed

Details on Qualcomm’s next-gen flagship SoC have started rolling in, months ahead of its planned debut. It is said that the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC will feature a restructured CPU cluster layout and will most likely only support 64-bit computing, removing all 32-bit support. The chip is said to be codenamed Lanai or Pineapple and is expected to launch in late 2023, possibly at Qualcomm’s annual summit in Hawaii. If the company’s past launches are anything to go by, we’ll likely also see the launch of a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2 SoC as a mid-year refresh with improved thermal performance and power efficiency. It’s hard to say if the SoC Gen 3 will actually make it to phones this year or if we’ll have to wait until 2024.

Details come via a thread on Twitter by Kuba Wojciechowski (@Za_Raczke) who claims that this next-gen chip will carry the model number SM8650 and will be codenamed Lanai, or Pineapple. The tweet states that it will have a new CPU configuration with a 2+3+2+1 structure. This includes two ARM Hayes (A5XX) “Silver” cores, three ARM Hunter (A7XX) “Gold” cores, two ARM Hunter (A7XX) “Titanium” cores, and one ARM Hunter ELP (Xn) “Gold” core. This will be the first chip from Qualcomm to have a “Titanium” cluster and at this time it is unclear how it will differ from the “Gold” cluster. Wojciechowski mentions that this new cluster could be configured differently with more cache, or could just be clocked higher.

According to my sources, the SoC will have the following CPU configuration:
2x arms codenamed Hayes (A5xx) “silver” cores
3x Hunter Arm Codename “Gold” Cores (A7xx)
2x Hunter arm codename “titanium” cores (A7xx)
1x Hunter ELP (Xn) arm codename “gold+” core

— Kuba Wojciechowski:3 (@Za_Raczke) March 23, 2023

The tweet further explains that ARM Hunter and Hunter (ELP) are new unannounced CPU cores. This new cluster configuration will be very different from the current 1+4+3 layout and seems to contradict the previous leak we had that suggested the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 would have a 1+5+2 configuration.

Wojciechowski says Qualcomm’s code also confirms that this SoC will only support 64-bit computing. The next chip’s GPU is said to be the Adreno 750 and currently has a maximum clock speed of 770MHz – although it’s possible this could change by the time the SoC is announced. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 would also run on Linux kernel version 6.1 with Android 14.

Previous rumors suggested that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC could launch early this year and get a 25% performance boost. If this is indeed true, it’s also possible that Qualcomm will skip a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2 model and release its successor directly.

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