Qualcomm is introducing the Snapdragon 600E and 410E processors, for embedded applications in many verticals such as digital signage, set-top-boxes, medical imaging, point of sale systems, industrial robotics, and other Internet of Things (IoT) related applications. The Snapdragon 600E and 410E are being made available globally by third party distributors, initially through Arrow Electronics, for a minimum of 10 years from the Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 400 (respectively) product families’ first commercial sampling. This is the first time stand-alone Snapdragon processors are available by distributors.

What Qualcomm brings to the embedded market is these highly integrated processors include the Wi-Fi and GPS on die making them highly integrated solution for connectivity. The processors also include on-die DSP and GPU's that can support HD level graphics and video. Neither chip, though, offers cellular modem capability, but do offer security features based on mobile platforms.

The Snapdragon 600E featuring 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Krait 300 CPU is a processor designed for building advanced systems with multi-core performance and 3D graphics, thanks to the Qualcomm Adreno 320 GPU and Qualcomm Hexagon DSP. It supports integrated Bluetooth 4.0/LE & 3.x, 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and GPS for connected applications. It is also expandable for a variety of use cases with SATA, SD3.0, DDR memory, eMMC storage, HDMI, LVDS, HSIC, and PCIe interfaces.

The Snapdragon 410E 1.2GHz quad-core processor offers high performance, low power consumption and rich multimedia with an Adreno 306 GPU and Hexagon DSP. It supports Bluetooth 4.1/LE, 802.11 b/g/n and GPS, making it a good solution for IoT use cases in smart homes, digital signage, medical equipment, industrial automation, digital media players and smart surveillance.

The 600e has higher performing video interfaces designed to run 1080p HD video, and image processing handle up to Up to 3 cameras - with support for 21MP, image stabilization, zero shutter lag and High Dynamic Range imaging. Qualcomm Adreno 320 GPU supports OpenGL 1.1/2.0 and DirectX9.3 graphics APIs and OpenCL for GPU compute.

Qualcomm will support Linux, Android, and in the case of the 410e, Windows 10 operating systems. The Snapdragon 600e also has support for Robot OS (ROS).

Qualcomm is used to supporting just a few customers that ship millions of units. The embedded market is composed of thousands of companies that take thousands of processors and Qualcomm is not set up for the logistics to support this many customers. That is why its partnership with Arrow Electronics makes so much sense.