The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Plus will serve as the primary premium mobile SoC for Android devices for the second half of 2021.

The component was announced Tuesday as a part of the Barcelona-based Mobile World Congress trade show. While Qualcomm was not involved in live activities at MWC, the Bridgewater, NJ semi-conductor manufacturer did participate in the conference virtually.

The component brand has confirmed that a number of smartphone manufacturers are set to launch devices with the chip in the third quarter of 2021 and beyond, including ASUS, Honor, Motorola, Vivo, and Xiaomi. In particular, the upcoming HONOR Magic 3 series flagship is now confirmed to power the chip.

“The platform’s industry-leading performance and gains in AI give us the flexibility to create a mobile experience that will fulfill the needs of even the most demanding users,” Honor Device Co., Ltd. product line president, Fang Fei said in a statement.

“Our collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies will allow us to deliver best-in-class experiences in the Magic series, which set new industry standards for flagship innovation, and we can’t wait for everyone to try it out in person,” she added. 

Between the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Plus and the original Snapdragon 888 chip, which was announced in December 2020, the component maker said it has over 130 device designs either announced or currently in development.

The Snapdragon 888 Plus promotes “AI-enhanced gameplay, streaming, as well as photography, boosted performance, speed, and premium connectivity”. Its Snapdragon Elite Gaming showcases “ultra-smooth responsiveness, color-rich HDR graphics” and a desktop-level experience on mobile.

Specs on the chip include the Qualcomm Kryo 680 CPU with 3.0 GHz clock speed, a Qualcomm Adreno 660 GPU, and a 6th generation Qualcomm AI Engine with 20 percent improvement in performance compared to the Snapdragon 888 at 32 TOPS.