Qualcomm to ship 1.5GHz dual-core snapdragons in Q4

Qualcomm will start shipping its fastest Snapdragon dual-core chip for smartphones and tablets in the fourth quarter, with devices possibly launching by the end of this year, the company said on Monday.

The company will ship the dual-core QSD8672 chip with CPU cores running at up to 1.5GHz, said Mark Frankel, vice president of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. The chip could go into smartphones, tablets and low-cost laptops,

The chip is a follow-up to the dual-core MSM8660 Snapdragon chip, which started shipping in the second quarter. The 8672 has a faster processor than 8660, which includes CPU cores running at 1.2GHz. The processor in the 8672 chip is based on an Arm design and will be manufactured using the 45-nanometer process.