Kryo (microarchitecture)

Kryo is a microarchitecture designed by Qualcomm implementing the ARMv8-A 64-bit instruction set, and serves as the successor to the old 32-bit Krait core. It was announced in September 2015 and first used in the Snapdragon 820 SoC, which is manufactured in Samsung's 14 nm FinFET process. The Kryo cores can be used in both parts of the big.LITTLE configuration, where two dual-core clusters (in the case of Snapdragon 820 and 821) run at different clock frequency, similar to how both Cortex-A53 clusters work in the Snapdragon 615.

A new generation of this microarchitecture, named Kryo 280, was announced along with the Snapdragon 835 chipset in November 2016. There have been some notable changes to the Snapdragon 835’s CPU configuration compared with last year. An octa-core configuration returns, after the Snapdragon 820 swapped back to a quad-core design, but the biggest change is with the new Kryo 280 CPU architecture. Despite the similar names, the Kryo 280 is a semi-custom CPU design, possibly based on the Cortex-A73, although Qualcomm has not revealed the specifics. The original Kryo cores inside the Snapdragon 820 were a complete Qualcomm custom solution, while the older 810 opted for stock ARM parts. The new Kryo 280 CPU core is used in both the “Performance” and “Efficiency” core parts of the CPU, with 2.45 and 1.9 GHz clock speeds respectively. In terms of performance, Qualcomm suggests a notable 20 percent boost over the 820, and the increased number of cores suggests that most of the gains will come in the form of multi-processing capabilities. As we’ve seen from other SoC and CPU designers, the main aim with the Snapdragon 835 is to greatly improve energy efficiency, allowing for sustained peak performance and longer lasting battery life. The company expects that smartphone power users will see an extra 2.5 hours’ worth of battery life when compared with the Snapdragon 820, and energy consumption is now just half that of the old Snapdragon 801. This is partially aided by Qualcomm’s choice of Samsung’s second generation 10nm FinFET manufacturing node. According to Samsung, the move to 10nm provides approximately a 30 percent increase to area efficiency, combined with up to a 27 percent boost to performance or a 40 percent reduction in power consumption compared to 16nm.