Qualcomm

Qualcomm Reveals Snapdragon AR2 Processor for Glasses-sized AR Devices

November 16, 2022 From roadtovr

Qualcomm today announced Snapdragon AR2, its “purpose-built headworn augmented reality platform.” Differentiating from the company’s existing Snapdragon XR2 chips, Qualcomm says the AR2 architecture is better suited for creating AR glasses with low power consumption and compact form factors.

Today during Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit event, the company revealed the Snapdragon AR2 platform which consists of a trio of chips which the company says will help make truly glasses-sized AR devices possible.

Qualcomm was early to the standalone VR space and has been dominant with its Snapdragon XR2 chips which have found their way into many of the leading standalone headsets on the market, and are now in more than 60 devices total, the company says.

Aiming to take a similar bite out of the forthcoming AR glasses segment, Qualcomm has created a new Snapdragon AR2 platform with a distributed processing design. The platform consists of three chips:

AR processor (for sensor perception and video output)
AR co-processor (for sensor fusion and dedicated computer vision tasks)
Wi-Fi 7 chip (for communication to a host processing device)

By creating a more distributed workload across a main processor and a co-processor, Qualcomm claims AR2 is up to 50% more power efficient while offering 2.5 times better AI performance, and a more compact form-factor, compared to the single-chip Snapdragon XR2 solution.

Not only will the AR processor and co-processor help share a workload, Qualcomm also sees AR2 devices using the speedy Wi-Fi 7 chip to communicate with a host device like a smartphone or wireless compute puck that will do the heavy lifting like application processing and rendering. Qualcomm claims the Wi-Fi 7 chip (FastConnect 7800) can achieve 5.8 Gbps bandwidth with just 2ms of latency.

Using this three-chip framework for distributed processing, Qualcomm claims it will be possible to build compact AR glasses that consume less than one watt of power.

The AR2 platform supports up to nine concurrent cameras for a bevy of head-tracking, environment-sensing, and user-tracking tasks.

“We built Snapdragon AR2 to address the unique challenges of headworn AR and provide industry leading processing, AI and connectivity that can fit inside a stylish form factor,” said Hugo Swart, vice president of XR product management at Qualcomm. “With the technical and physical requirements for VR/MR and AR diverging, Snapdragon AR2 represents another metaverse-defining platform in our XR portfolio to help our OEM partners revolutionize AR glasses.”

There’s no word yet on when the first AR2 devices will hit the market, but Qualcomm lists a handful of partners actively working with the platform: Lenovo, LG, Niantic, Nreal, Oppo, Pico, Qonoq, Rokid, Sharp, TCL, Vuzix, and Xiaomi.

Qualcomm Says Multiple Snapdragon XR2+ Devices Will be Announced by Year’s End

November 1, 2022 From roadtovr

Semiconductor giant Qualcomm says its latest XR chipset, the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 1, will find its way into multiple virtual and mixed reality (MR) headsets by the end of 2022.

We know of at least two headset that already feature Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon XR chipset: the recently launched Meta Quest Pro and Lenovo ThinkReality VRX, both of which are VR standalones capable of augmented reality interactions thanks to color passthrough cameras (aka ‘mixed reality’).

Announced on October 11th alongside Quest Pro, Snapdragon XR2+ boasts better heat dissipation, providing it the ability for 50% higher sustained power and 30% improved thermal performance over the previous Snapdragon XR2 introduced in 2019, which you’ll find in many VR and AR headsets today.

“This allows more concurrent multimedia and perception technologies to be utilized simultaneously enabling full-sensory interactions, like creating life-like human expressions in the metaverse, without compromising form factor,” the company says.

Qualcomm says Snapdragon XR2+ introduces a new image processing pipeline providing less than 10ms latency for the sort of full-color passthrough seen in Quest Pro and ThinkReality VRX. It also supports 8K 60fps 360-degree video, low latency Wi-Fi 6, head, hand and controller tracking, 3D reconstruction, automatic room mapping, and high pixel density displays.

The company says “[m]ultiple OEMs have already committed to commercializing devices powered by Snapdragon XR2+ that will be announced by the end of 2022,” which means we’re due for a deluge of higher-end headsets which is slated to bring more competition to the prosumer and enterprise space.

Meta & Qualcomm Join “Multi-year” XR Chip Partnership to Combat a Common Threat

September 3, 2022 From roadtovr

Two of the biggest names in XR—headset maker Meta and chip maker Qualcomm—today announced a “multi-year broad strategic agreement” to collaborate on “customized virtual reality chipsets” for future devices.

Qualcomm, a leading provider of smartphone processors, was an early mover in the XR space by pushing variants of its Snapdragon mobile processors as ideal for use in both AR and VR headsets—a play which now sees the company’s product in the vast majority of standalone headsets available on the market today.

Meta has used Qualcomm processors in all of its standalone headsets to date—Go, Quest, and Quest 2—and is expected to do the same in its forthcoming Project Cambria headset.

Today Meta and Qualcomm jointly announced they have entered into a “multi-year broad strategic agreement” to work together on XR platform development. The agreement was a big enough deal that the CEOs of both companies made the announcement together during the IFA 2022 conference.

“We’re working with Qualcomm Technologies on customized virtual reality chipsets— powered by Snapdragon XR platforms and technology—for our future roadmap of Quest products,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “As we continue to build more advanced capabilities and experiences for virtual and augmented reality, it has become more important to build specialized technologies to power our future VR headsets and other devices.”

With the companies having already worked together over the last several years, it’s a curious announcement—what gives?

On its face the announcement likely represents a commitment by Qualcomm to make Meta a top priority client over the next several years, devoting more time to the company and offering it more influence over future Snapdragon XR chips from Qualcomm. And with Meta believing that it’s going to take a complete rethinking of the typical computing architecture to make the sci-fi vision of XR a reality, the companies will probably be prototyping together on that front as well.

But there’s likely another major reason for this partnership—it brings two allies together against a common threat: Apple.

Though Apple hasn’t formally announced any XR products yet, all signs point to a long history of R&D and a desire for the company to dominate the space. For Meta, which itself wants to control the destiny of XR, that’s a problem. Mark Zuckerberg has been eyeing this potentiality since at least as far back as 2015, which drove him to buy Oculus in the first place—in an effort to get out ahead of companies like Apple and Google in the nascent XR space.

But Apple is a problem for Qualcomm too… Apple is sure to use its own custom processors (colloquially referred to as ‘Apple silicon’) in its XR products. By definition then, the greater marketshare that Apple has in the XR space, the fewer Snapdragon chips Qualcomm will sell.

Apple has long been building its own custom processors for its smartphones which has given the company and edge over competitors using commodity chips. In the last few years Apple has also begun phasing out third-party processors in favor of its own chips in its PC products, signaling a maturation of the company’s microprocessor design and fabrication capabilities.

For Meta, the partnership with Qualcomm buttresses a strategic vulnerability by giving the company a committed ally that can make chips that are highly specialized for XR devices.

For Qualcomm, the partnership with Meta is an effort to ensure that Apple doesn’t easily dominate the XR market and snuff out the company’s opportunity to sell chips to a wide variety of non-Apple XR device makers.

Ultimately the partnership is a maneuver in a fight for early ground in a market that the companies expect will one day be worth trillions of dollars.

Qualcomm’s Latest AR Glasses Reference Design Drops the Tether, Keeps the Compute

May 21, 2022 From roadtovr

Qualcomm has revealed its latest AR glasses reference design, which it offers up to other companies as a blueprint for building their own AR devices. The reference design, which gives us a strong hint at the specs and capabilities of upcoming products, continues to lean on a smartphone to do the heavy compute, but this time is based on a wireless design.

Qualcomm’s prior AR glasses reference design was based on the Snapdragon XR1 chip and called for a wired connection between a smartphone and the glasses, allowing the system to split rendering tasks between the two devices.

Now the company’s latest design, based on Snapdragon XR2, takes the wire out of the equation. But instead of going fully standalone, the new reference design continues to rely on the smartphone to handle most of the heavy rendering, but now does so over a wireless connection between the devices.

In addition to Snapdragon XR2, the AR glasses include Qualcomm’s FastConnect 6900 chip which equips it with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The company says the chip is designed for “ultra-low latency,” and manages less than 3ms of latency between the headset and the smartphone. The company has also announced XR-specific software for controlling its FastConnect 6900, allowing device makers to tune the wireless traffic between the devices to prioritize the most time-critical data in order to reduce instances of lag or jitter due to wireless interference.

Though a connected smartphone seems like the most obvious use-case, Qualcomm also says the glasses could just as well be paired to a Windows PC or “processing puck.”

Beyond the extra wireless tech, the company says the latest design is 40% thinner than its previous reference design. The latest version has a 1,920 × 1,080 (2MP) per-eye resolution at 90Hz. The microdisplays include a ‘no-motion-blur’ feature—which sounds like a low persistence mode designed to prevent blurring of the image during head movement. A pair of monochrome cameras are used for 6DOF tracking and an RGB camera for video or photo capture. The company didn’t mention the device’s field-of-view, so it’s unlikely to be any larger than the prior reference design at 45° diagonal.

Like its many prior reference designs, Qualcomm isn’t actually going to make and sell the AR glasses. Instead, it offers up the design and underlying technology for other companies to use as a blueprint to build their own devices (hopefully using Qualcomm’s chips!). Companies that build on Qualcomm’s blueprint usually introduce their own industrial design and custom software offering; some even customize the hardware itself, like using different displays or optics.

That makes this AR glasses reference design a pretty good snapshot of the current state of AR glasses that can be mass produced, and a glimpse of what some companies will be offering in the near future.

Qualcomm says its latest AR glasses reference design is “available for select partners,” as of today, and plans to make it more widely available “in the coming months.”

TikTok Parent ByteDance Partners with Qualcomm on XR Hardware and Software

March 4, 2022 From roadtovr

ByteDance, parent company to TikTok and VR headset creators Pico Interactive, announced at MWC 2022 that it’s partnering with Qualcomm, something that could help the chipmaker better diversify as the XR industry continues to expand.

During Qualcomm’s keynote at this year’s MWC, company CEO Cristiano Amon said that Meta brought “significant scale” with the release of its popular standalone VR headset Quest 2, which houses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 processor.

As competition with Meta grows, Qualcomm is no doubt looking to make sure it has plenty of hardware partners moving forward who will integrate those Snapdragon chips into the next generation of XR headsets.

To that effect, Qualcomm says its collaborating with ByteDance on XR hardware, software, developer tools, and technology road maps—specifically targeted at Pico Interactive, which was acquired by ByteDance in August 2021.

ByteDance CEO Rubo Liang said that Pico devices will be powered by Snapdragon Spaces XR too, Qualcomm’s developer platform that allows creators to make 3D applications for smartphone-tethered AR glasses.

Pico is almost entirely dedicated to enterprise VR outside of China, serving up its standalone Pico Neo 3 Pro, which also has Qualcomm’s popular Snapdragon XR2. That may change though as China-based TikTok parent company looks to compete with Meta outside of the world of snackable videos, and better position itself as a so-called ‘metaverse company’.

Qualcomm and Microsoft Partner on Custom Chips for Next-Gen AR Glasses

January 5, 2022 From vrfocus

Qualcomm held its CES 2022 press conference earlier today and as part of the event revealed that it’s partnered with Microsoft to help push the future of augmented reality (AR). Qualcomm announced that the collaboration will see the pair develop custom AR chips for both consumer and enterprise devices.

These custom AR chips will focus on ushering in an era of AR glasses that are lightweight and power-efficient as well as integrating into Microsoft’s ecosystem. That’ll mean support for software like Microsoft Mesh – Microsoft’s shared mixed-reality (MR) platform – and the Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform.

What this could mean is a more lightweight, consumer-friendly version of Microsoft’s HoloLens 2. A consumer edition was in fact confirmed last year by Microsoft’s Alex Kipman who said: “we are absolutely working on a consumer journey for HoloLens.” And then there was that Pokémon GO demo by Niantic Labs using the MR headset.

“This collaboration reflects the next step in both companies’ shared commitment to XR and the metaverse,” said Hugo Swart, vice president and general manager of XR, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. in a statement. “Qualcomm Technologies’ core XR strategy has always been delivering the most cutting-edge technology, purpose-built XR chipsets and enabling the ecosystem with our software platforms and hardware reference designs. We are thrilled to work with Microsoft to help expand and scale the adoption of AR hardware and software across the entire industry.”

“Our goal is to inspire and empower others to collectively work to develop the metaverse future – a future that is grounded in trust and innovation,” adds Rubén Caballero, corporate vice president Mixed Reality, Microsoft. “With services like Microsoft Mesh, we are committed to delivering the safest and most comprehensive set of capabilities to power metaverses that blend the physical and digital worlds, ultimately delivering a shared sense of presence across devices. We look forward to working with Qualcomm Technologies to help the entire ecosystem unlock the promise of the metaverse.”

Qualcomm is heavily invested in the XR space with chipsets like its Snapdragon XR2 platform being used in devices like Meta Quest 2. And then there’s the XR1 AR Smart Viewer Reference Design which OEM’s can utilise to enter the AR glasses market. This, of course, all leads towards a metaverse vision that most tech companies seem to be scrambling towards. As further details arise, keep reading VRFocus.

Qualcomm & Microsoft Partner on “custom AR chips” for Next-gen, Light-weight Glasses

January 4, 2022 From roadtovr

Today during Qualcomm’s CES 2022 press conference, the company announced a partnership with fellow tech-giant Microsoft which will involve “designing custom AR chips and integrating software platforms.”

Qualcomm and Microsoft today strengthened their growing relationship in the XR space with a new partnership announcement. While Microsoft has already relied on Qualcomm to supply the Snapdragon chips found in its latest HoloLens 2 headset, now the companies indicate plans to work more closely together on components for future AR devices.

“This collaboration reflects the next step in both companies’ shared commitment to XR and the metaverse,” said Hugo Swart, vice president of XR at Qualcomm. “Qualcomm Technologies’ core XR strategy has always been delivering the most cutting-edge
technology, purpose-built XR chipsets and enabling the ecosystem with our software platforms and hardware reference designs. We are thrilled to work with Microsoft to help expand and scale the adoption of AR hardware and software across the entire industry.”

Specifically Qualcomm says it will be working with Microsoft on “developing custom AR chips to enable a new wave of power efficient, lightweight AR glasses to deliver rich and immersive experiences.” Further, the announcement reveals plans to integrate Microsoft Mesh—the company’s multi-user XR foundation—with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Spaces XR development tools.

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Qualcomm has established itself as an early leader in the growing XR space by leveraging its expertise in smartphone chip design to create the Snapdragon XR1 and XR2 chips which now power most of the leading standalone XR devices.

Ostensibly the company already has an XR3 chip in the works, so it isn’t clear if the “custom chips” that will result from the partnership will basically mean that Microsoft has more say over what XR3 ultimately look like, or it if it will get its own custom chip that’s exclusive for its own uses in devices like HoloLens 3.