Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Hexagon 680 DSP will manage always-on applications and improve photo processing

Some companies don’t like giving you the whole press talk all at once; they would rather announce their new technologies bit by bit. One of these is definitely Qualcomm, which has been teasing their new Snapdragon 820 processor for quite some time. They recently shed some light on the Adreno 530 GPU, after showcasing their ultrasonic fingerprint scanning technology. What is next?

Today Qualcomm announces their new Hexagon 680 DSP. You are probably wondering what the heck those 3 letters mean. A DSP is a digital signal processor. In short, its a section of the chipset that takes care of specific functions. In this case, the Hexagon 680’s job will be managing always-on applications, computer vision and image processing.

Always-on applications include sensor-aware functions, such as activity and location tracking. The new DSP will allow these services to continue running more efficiently and using less energy, as it would allow other processor cores to take a break.

When it comes to image processing, this signal processor will be able to brighten under-exposed areas, as well as improve low-light video, all without spending as much energy than both the whole CPU or GPU. Furthermore, this technology can be used to improve computer vision, effectively improving virtual and augmented reality applications. Qualcomm calls this Hexagon Vector Extensions (HVX).

More details on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset are sure to come. Slowly, but surely. For now, all we can do is hope Qualcomm was more careful making this SoC, as the Snapdragon 810 and its supposed over-heating issues sure left some fans unhappy.