Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound: Questions, Development, Audio Momentum and the Market

In early March 2021, following a series of announcements in development platforms and solutions for wireless audio, Qualcomm announced Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound, a new end-to-end approach to promote high-resolution digital audio and enhanced voice communications across devices. The systems' approach combines and optimizes multiple Qualcomm technologies for mobile platforms, processing, connectivity, plus the latest aptX Adaptive audio technologies needed to improve the sound experience for consumers. But how can manufacturers and new brands benefit? Will there be a lossless extension for aptX Adaptive? We asked the questions to Jonny McClintock, Director of aptX Sales & Marketing at Qualcomm.

Qualcomm Technologies International, unveiled the Qualcomm QCC305x SoCs, designed specifically to help brands differentiate across a range of tiers in the very fast-moving truly wireless earbud category. The new SoCs are designed to meet demand for advanced wireless audio use cases, and enable end-to-end support for the new Bluetooth LE Audio standard. The QCC305x series also adds support for ultra-low-power digital ANC technology, Qualcomm Adaptive ANC, Qualcomm TrueWireless Mirroring, and wake word activated voice assistants.

Truly wireless earbuds are growing rapidly in popularity as consumers discover everything that the Apple AirPods and Apple AirPods Pro are capable of and experiment other products, demanding similarly rich functionalities from their devices. To allow manufacturers to stay ahead of the curve by bringing innovative new features to market quickly with Bluetooth 5.2, Qualcomm made available its QCC5141 Occluded Earbud Reference Design with Qualcomm TrueWireless Mirroring and Qualcomm Hybrid ANC.

With its previous generation of QCC SoCs for Bluetooth true wireless earbuds development, Qualcomm enabled virtually every single mobile and CE brand to finally create products able to compete with Apple's massively successful AirPods, still the market leader by a wide margin. Then Apple introduced its AirPods Pro with ANC and its market share expanded even more. Now Qualcomm launched a new generation of SoCs combining hybrid ANC and other technologies to enable brands to design new competitive TWS products.