Snapdragon processors have long been a staple in Android mobile devices but they will soon spread to more than just smartphones. Qualcomm Incorporated announced on Wednesday morning that it is not only producing a pair of new chips, the 410E and 600E, designed specifically for embedded and IoT devices. It is also teaming with Arrow Electronics to make these stand-alone processors available to small and medium-size manufacturers.
The 600E is a 1.5GHz quad-core chip with Bluetooth 4, an 802.11 a to ac radio and GPS capabilities. It’s geared towards more resource-intensive applications like 3D graphics rendering. The iViz ultrasound machine from Fujifilm Sonosite utilizes the 600E, for example. The 410E, on the other hand, runs at 1.2Ghz with a Adreno 306 GPU (compared to the 320 in the 600E). It supports Bluetooth 4.1 but only supports 802.11 b/g/n and GPS. So while it doesn’t have quite the same graphics chops as the 600E, the 410E’s low power draw makes it more suitable for IoT devices like the Open-Q 410 Wearable Camera Reference Design from Intrinsyc.
What’s more, Qualcomm also announced that it is pairing with Arrow Electronics. This partnership will enable the chip maker, which normally produces processors by the millions for customers like Samsung, to now offer these two chipsets in far smaller numbers. That’s going to allow small- and mid-size companies to incorporate them into their devices without needing enormous production runs — in fact, they’ll be able to order as few as 100 at a time. Plus, Qualcomm is guaranteeing that they’ll produce these two models at least through 2025 so developers won’t have to worry about needing to swap them out for newer iterations any time soon.