TV makers are trotting out sets with "Ultra HD" resolution at the
International CES electronics trade show in Las Vegas this week.
Few
video cameras record at that resolution, which is four times higher than
regular high definition. But Qualcomm Inc., a leading maker of chips
for cellphones, says it has a solution: With its chips, smartphones
could be recording video in Ultra HD as early as this year.
Paul
Jacobs, the CEO of the San Diego-based chipmaker, revealed a lineup of
new chips in a keynote speech Monday, ahead of the opening of the show.
The
topline model, the Snapdragon 800, has 75 percent more horsepower than
Qualcomm's old fastest model. That makes it fast enough to record and
playback Ultra HD video, the company said. It doesn't consume more
power, so the battery life should be the same.
Qualcomm is sending
out samples of the new chips right now. It will ship them in volume in a
few months, so they could show up in gadgets on store shelves this
summer.
The 800 chips are for premium phone models and tablets,
much like Qualcomm's current top-line chips are used in flagship phones
like the LG Optimus G and HTC Droid DNA.
Smartphone displays have
been getting sharper and bigger, but Qualcomm doesn't quite envision
them having as many pixels as the new 84-inch and 110-inch ultra-high
definition TV sets.
The maximum resolution for a display with a
Snapdragon 800 is slightly lower than Ultra HD, but higher than regular
high definition. That means the Snapdragon 800 chip can play back video
recorded in Ultra HD, but won't be displaying all the recorded detail.
In
a similar way, many of today's smartphones can record
"1080p"-resolution video and play it back, but have displays that don't
show the full recorded resolution.
Qualcomm's biggest competitor
when it comes to making "brains" for smartphones, NVidia Corp., on
Sunday revealed a new "Tegra 4" chip that will be able to play ultra-HD
video.