This morning in New Delhi, Qualcomm is taking the wraps off of their latest entry-level, high-volume SoC, the Qualcomm 205 SoC. Qualcomm's 200-Series SoC Lineup 205 SoC 208 SoC 210 SoC CPU 2 x ARM Cortex A7 1. The difference comes down a fraction of a dollar, but for emerging markets looking to push out to LTE — and with many of those markets subsidizing phones — even the cents matter. So now Qualcomm is rolling out a dual-core design with LTE, offering an even more basic design than the 3G-only 208 or the LTE-equipped 210. At a high level, the specs are unremarkable and appropriately simplistic. Dual-sim functionality is present, as is VoLTE and VoWiFi as well. The Hexagon DSP has been removed as well, saving further die space. Though the definition of what exactly a feature phone is in 2017 is a bit muddled — the form factor seems to be the only defining element when even the OSes are now full-fledged systems based on ASOP and other Linux projects — they remain the cheapest phones, and Qualcomm expects them to benefit from LTE in similar ways as smartphones have over the last several years. Otherwise Qualcomm expects the use cases for feature phones to be many of the same ones as smartphone users already do, if only on a smaller scale: social media, video streaming, etc. Meanwhile, one claim that particularly caught my attention is that Qualcomm is expecting to be able to get 45 day standby out of 205 phones; while 205 is of course designed for low power operation, with a 2000mAh battery this works out to a standby power consumption of just 6mW. Wrapping things up, Qualcomm is shipping the 205 Mobile Platform today. Phones based on the platform will be showing up quickly thereafter, with the first devices expected next quarter. Apart from that almost all the smartphone companies have opened up a factory in the last two years. Apart from big companies like Samsung, Lenovo etc Even smaller Chinese companies like Xiaomi, OPPO, VIVO are have started local Indian manufacturing. Assuming they make their way into consumer products at all which isn't a given eg the A15 was intended as a faster A7 for segments where a 64bit CPU was overkill, but has gone more or less nowhere over the last few years , they'll show up on higher priced entry level smartphone or IoT products first. So what they're getting is a 210 that's been cut down even more on most fronts than the 208, but which is keeping the entry level LTE modem because LTE is starting to be deployed in that segment of the market. No need for a 64-bit core, however low-end, on a SKU like this. Not this year anyway. A custom design might have made use of A35 just because of course, but why spend money on a custom design for such a low-end product when you have something you can use already. Jio telecom just wanted a volte enabled basic phone only for calls and occasional internet - they only have 4g network, no legacy 3g or 2g network. Hence this barebone chip with volte. In my opinion considering the usage of the target device, this chip is still a overkill.
