One of the toughest segments for the Indian Gadget Awards jury was Best Mobile SoC (system on chips) Award that is full of metrics. Not just stats, but understanding the subtle differences each of the top SoCs released in the last year showed in terms of performance. Qualcomm, MediaTek, Apple and Samsung, the biggest players, occupy the most slots and nominations, and this shows how much research these companies put into their chipset designs and technologies.
2022 has seen some excellent and powerful releases in terms of various chipsets from companies despite battling multiple adversities. And one of the biggest opportunities was the floods in Taiwan, which hit chipmakers like TSMC really hard and smartphone makers ran into trouble with the shortage of chipset supplies. The smartphone industry was definitely affected by the problem, but overcame it in the second half of the year and things were back on track. Our nominations are divided into two segments, with the first nominations for the chipsets in mainstream smartphones, which are more in the budget segment, followed by the premium crème de la crème of 2022 SoC offerings on flagship smartphones.
Best Mainstream Mobile SoC of 2022 – Indian Gadget Awards Nominees
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 695
- Mediatek Dimension 8100
- Mediatek Helio G99
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1
- UNISOC T611
- Samsung Exynos 1280
Qualcomm Snapdragon 695
The Snapdragon 695 5G is one of Qualcomm’s cheaper SoCs that brought 5G to mainstream smartphones. Offering both Sub-6 and mmWave in the 6 Series, it boosts productivity along with immersive gaming and high-end camera capabilities. With support for both 5G frequencies, the Snapdragon 695 5G is an 8-core chipset originally announced on October 27, 2021. It is manufactured with a 6-nanometer process technology and features 2 Kryo 660 Gold (Cortex-A78) cores 2200MHz and 6 Kryo 660 Silver (Cortex-A55) cores at 1700MHz. It has been used on smartphones like the Vivo T1, iQOO Z6 5G, POCO X4 Pro and others.
Mediatek Dimension 8100
The MediaTek Dimensity series of SoCs has been one of the company’s success stories, with the chipsets successfully competing with the best on the market. And the MediaTek Dimensity 8100 is the upgraded version of the MediaTek Dimensity 8000 and is manufactured with the TSMC N5 (5nm class) production process. According to the company, the Dimensity 8100 offers up to 20% better gaming performance than its predecessor and over 25% better CPU power efficiency. This 5G-ready SoC features an octa-core CPU with speeds up to 2.85 GHz and an Arm Mali-G610 MC6 graphics engine for high frame rate gaming in top titles and up to 20% power savings over competitive alternatives , allowing gamers to play much longer on battery power. Some of the smartphones that use this chipset are Xiaomi Redmi K50i and the Realme GT Neo 3 5G.
Mediatek Helio G99
The MediaTek Helio G99 is a 4G chipset that made it onto this list, and this 4G chipset for gaming smartphones is made using the efficient TSMC N6 (6nm class) chip production process. The MediaTek Helio G99 is an octa-core CPU with two high-performance Arm Cortex-A76 cores clocked up to 2.2GHz and 6 Arm Cortex-A55 cores clocked up to 2.0GHz are. These are accompanied by a high-performance Arm Mali G57-class GPU. It also features LPDDR4X memory up to 2133MHz and fast Class 2.2 UFS memory to speed up data access. This chipset has been used in smartphones like the POCO M5, Tecno Pova 4, Xiaomi Redmi 11 Prime, Realme 10 and more.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1
The second Qualcomm chipset in our nominations is the Snapdragon 4 Gen 1, which just launched in October 2022. Manufactured using 6-nanometer process technology, this 5G-ready chipset features 2 Cortex-A78 cores running at 2000MHz and 6 Cortex-A55 cores running at 1800MHz. It’s Qualcomm’s 4-series chipset, made with utility in mind. This chipset brings improved Qualcomm Kryo technology. It features an Adreno 619 GPU and also supports LPDDR4X RAM up to 2133MHz. The only smartphone currently available with this chipset is the iQOO Z6 Lite 5G.
UNISOC T612
The UNISOC T612 or Unisoc Tiger T612 is an entry-level 8-core CPU from the company formerly known as Spreadtrum. It is manufactured at TSMC using 12nm fabbing technology. This chipset has two fast ARM Cortex A75 cores with up to 1.8 GHz and six energy-efficient ARM Cortex A55 cores with up to 1.8 GHz. This is the second 4G-capable SoC in our nominations and it is equipped with an LPDDR3-933 / LPDDR4/4X-1600 memory controller, an ARM Mali-G52MP1 614MHz GPU and supports triple camera setups with a maximum combination of 24 MP, 8 MP and another 8 MP sensor. It is used on smartphones like the Realme C33, Realme Narzo 50i and the Narzo 50A.
Samsung Exynos 1280
This Samsung Exynos SoC is an 8-core chipset originally announced on March 17, 2022. The Samsung Exynos 1280 is manufactured using a 5-nanometer process technology and features 2 Cortex-A78 cores at 2400MHz and 6 Cortex-A55 cores at 2000MHz. It features an onboard memory controller that supports LPDDR4x RAM. It supports cameras up to 108MP and has an integrated ARM Mali G68 MC4 GPU that supports displays up to 1080p at up to 120Hz. This Exynos SoC has an integrated 5G modem supporting Sub-6 GHz (2550/1280 Mbit/s), mmWave (1840/920 Mbit/s) and LTE Cat 18 (1200/200 Mbit/s) along with WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2 supported. It has been used in smartphones such as Samsung Galaxy M33 series and Samsung Galaxy A53 series.
Best Premium Mobile SoC of 2022 – Indian Gadget Awards Nominees
- Mediatek Dimension 9000
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
- Apple A16 Bionic
- Google Tensor G2
Mediatek Dimension 9000
Our top pick among top-of-the-line SoCs for premium smartphones is the MediaTek Dimensity 9000, which launched in late 2021 and really spearheaded MediaTek in 2022. It features flagship class 5G capabilities and is manufactured using the most advanced TSMC N4 (4nm class) production process. It has 1 Cortex-X2 core running at 3050MHz, 3 Cortex-A710 cores running at 2850MHz and 4 Cortex-A510 cores running at 1800MHz. All CPU cores can use 8 MB level 3 cache and 6 MB system level cache (SLC) at the same time. It features an onboard quad-channel memory controller that supports LPDDR5X at 7500Mbps and features an ARM Mali-G710 MC10 GPU. There was stiff competition for smartphones with Apple A15, Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoCs. It is included in smartphones like OnePlus 10R, Realme GT Neo 3T, Vivo X80 and more.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 was the chipset of choice for most of the Android flagship smartphones released in the second half of 2022. This top chipset from Qualcomm has a “Prime Core” based on a clocked ARM Cortex-X2 architecture with up to 3.2 GHz and 3 additional Cortex-A710 performance cores with up to 2.5 GHz and 4 more Energy-saving ARM Cortex-A510 cores with up to 1.8 GHz. All cores can share a 6MB level 3 cache. This chipset was manufactured by TSMC using the 4nm process. It has a built-in AI engine that can provide up to 4X faster AI performance. It also features an Adreno 730 GPU and a Snapdragon X65 5G modem. It has been used on flagship smartphones like OnePlus 10T, iQOO 9T 5G, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 5G and more.
Apple A16 Bionic
The Apple A16 Bionic is the latest chipset from the world’s leading smartphone maker and that says something about its capabilities. The chipset, currently only available with the new iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max smartphones, is manufactured using a 4-nanometer process technology and features 2 Everest cores running at 3460 MHz and 4 Sawtooth cores running at 2020 MHz. According to Apple, the A16 chipset is apparently 40% faster than the competition. Manufactured by TSMC using third generation N5 technology, the A16 features 16 billion transistors. It also features an improved 16-core dedicated neural network known as the “Neural Engine”, a new Image Signal Processor (ISP) with improved computational photography capabilities, and a new module for handling screen-related functions that Apple calls the “Display Engine”.
Google Tensor G2
The Google Tensor G2 is a new chipset developed by Google and Samsung for the Google Pixel 7 series smartphones. It was manufactured by Samsung using the 5 nm process and has 2 fast ARM Cortex-X1 cores with up to 2.85 GHz, 2 mid-range Cortex-A78 cores with up to 2.35 GHz and 4 small ARM Cortex -A55 efficiency cores up to 2.35GHz to 1.8GHz. The biggest upgrade over the G1 chipset generation is the new TPU, which is both more powerful and more energy efficient. It comes with a modern 7-core ARM Mali G710 architecture GPU. It also features a Titan M2 security processor, an LPDDR5 memory controller, and support for 10-bit HDR/4k/60 video and 108MP cameras.
