Snapdragon 4 Gen 6 leak suggests on-device AI could come to mass market phones

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4 series of chips usually powers very cheap Android phones. Now, it looks like the company’s upcoming Snapdragon 4 Gen 6 has leaked online ahead of its formal release.

NotebookCheck apparently obtained a confidential diagram sheet for the unannounced SM8475 chipset, claiming it’s likely the Snapdragon 4 Gen 6 processor. The outlet claims that the chip is built on TSMC’s 4nm process, much like the previous processor. Furthermore, it’s powered by two Kryo Gold CPU cores (apparently Cortex-A78) and six Kryo Silver cores (said to be Cortex-A55). This would be a very pedestrian CPU setup in 2026, although it should deliver smooth everyday performance on budget phones.

The purported Snapdragon 4 Gen 6 is said to offer an Adreno 600-series GPU. There’s no word on specific performance improvements, although the Snapdragon 4 Gen 5’s apparent Adreno 600-series GPU delivered a 77% boost over its predecessor.

The new chip is also listed with a dedicated Hexagon DSP and AI processor, which isn’t available on previous SoCs. This suggests that the Snapdragon 4 Gen 6 could bring significant AI and machine learning upgrades to sub-$300 phones.

Other notable features include newfound support for LPDDR5 RAM, UFS 3.1 storage compatibility, a Release 17 5G modem with sub-6GHz support, and USB 2.0 speeds.

There’s no word on specific performance and efficiency improvements compared to the Snapdragon 4 Gen 5. Nevertheless, it’s clear that the CPU will likely see mild upgrades at best over the older chip. There’s no change in the manufacturing process, either. So our fingers are crossed for major GPU and AI gains.