Qualcomm announced the first processor in its new Snapdragon 700 line, which it said brings “select premium-tier features to a broader audience”.

The Snapdragon 710 Mobile Platform is positioned between the flagship Snapdragon 800 line and mid-tier Snapdragon 600 processor, which has been used in devices inlcuding Moto X4, Asus ZenFone 4, Samsung Galaxy A9 Pro and Xiaomi Mi 6X.

Qualcomm said the silicon offers several firsts outside of its premium processors, including use of a 10nm manufacturing process, third-generation Kryo CPU, second-generation Spectra image processing, 4K HDR playback, Snapdragon X15 LTE modem and Adreno 6-series GPU.

Kedar Kondap, VP of product management for Qualcomm, described the Snapdragon 700 line as “newly defined and highly significant”.

Snapdragon 710 apparently offers up to two-times the artificial intelligence (AI) performance of Snapdragon 660. While some rivals have touted AI-specific processing units, Qualcomm’s approach is to allocate AI workloads across the CPU, GPU and DSP.

Qualcomm said its technology supports on-device AI processing of voice inputs, photography and biometrics.

The Kryo 360 CPU has six “efficiency” cores running at 1.7GHz and two “performance” cores at 2.2GHz. The Adreno 616 graphics processor renders visuals up to 35 per cent faster than the previous Adreno generation.

As always, Qualcomm said Snapdragon 710 is “much more than a processor”. It includes a Snapdragon X15 LTE modem, offering download speeds of up to 800Mb/s, with improved capacity and flexibility for Licensed Assisted Access deployments and support for 4×4 MIMO.

The modem is said to deliver clear advantages particularly where there is poor signal quality.

For camera hardware, Qualcomm Spectra 250 image sensing processor offers noise reduction, active depth sensing, slow motion video capture and 4K video capture at 40 per cent lower power. It is compatible with single cameras up to 32MP resolution and dual cameras up to 20MP.

Snapdragon 710 is already on sale and the company expects the first devices using it to be available from Q2.