Recent advances in charging technology puts Qualcomm Technologies above its competitors after it introduced its next generation Snapdragon 835 processor's Quick Charge capacity, the fourth generation of its charging standard.

Under the hood, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 will be powered by Samsung's 10nm LPE FinFET process and includes up to a 30 percent increase in area efficiency with 27 percent higher performance, corresponding to a 40 percent reduction in power consumption. Also, this will be an octa-core chip with improved Kyro 200 custom CPU cores and an updated Adreno GPU.

As the company's latest and greatest fast charging technology, Quick Charge 4 is engineered to charge a typical smartphone from zero to 50 percent in about 15 minutes or less.

According to ExtremeTech, Quick Charge 4 is escalated from its past versions, wielding a 20 percent faster charging capacity than the 3.0 variant, despite the same 18W rating as the old version. Efficiency has also been boosted by 30 percent, meaning users can get more power in a shorter amount of time.

This staggering charging capacity is brought by its improvement on how the power is delivered and intelligently adapts to the state and heat of the battery, and by reducing thermal inefficiencies in the charging process.

Unlike Quick Charge 3.0, 4.0 is fully compliant with USB Type-C protocols, including USB Power Delivery. Qualcomm Technologies stated that it standardizes the capabilities of Quick Charge 4 adapters to "help ensure that a single accessory supports multiple charging implementations and mobile devices," according to its website.

The new Snapdragon 835 will also carry a "Battery Saver" feature carefully designed to extend battery cycle life and provide comprehensive safety. Throughout the entire charging process, the chipset will measure voltage, current and temperature accurately while protecting the battery, system, cables, and connectors.

Qualcomm administered its INOV (Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage) version 3 on the new chipset's algorithm, which allows for optimum power transfer while maximizing efficiency.

On the other hand, Dual Charge feature caused the chipset to have more efficient thermal dissipation and reduced charge time by dividing the charge current. Also, this technology incorporates intelligent thermal balancing engineered for optimized power delivery.

Quick Charge 4 is expected to be commercially available in the first half of 2017, while the SMB1380/1 is expected to be available before the end of this year.

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Topics Qualcomm, Snapdragon 835, Qualcomm Snapdragon