Keeping up with Intel, Qualcomm ships its first dual-core Snapdragon chips

Intel is applying pressure to cellphone chip makers as it barges into the market with its Atom microprocessors. In response, Qualcomm is announcing today it has created its first dual-core Snapdragon chip set for smartphones.

Announced at the Computex 2010 trade show in Taiwan, the third generation Snapdragon chip sets have two application processor cores running at up to 1.2 gigahertz. The names for the new chip sets are the Mobile Station Modem MSM8260 and the MSM8660. They’re targeted at high-end smartphones, tablets and smartbooks, which are hybrids of phones and laptops. Smartbooks have displays ranging from 7-inches diagonal to 15 inches.  One of the first announced earlier this year was Lenovo’s Skylight, pictured below.

These devices include a graphics core capable of running OPEN GL ES 2.0 graphics as well has high-definition 1080p video. At the same time, they don’t use a ton of power, so they can be built into small devices with long battery lives. These chips will go head to head with rival chips from Broadcom, Intel, Nvidia, Marvell and Texas Instruments. Qualcomm says the Snapdragon chip sets are being used in more than 140 different device designs that have either already launched or are currently under design.

Among the devices using Snapdragon chip sets are Acer’s Liquid and neoTouch smartphones, Dell’s Streak 5 Android tablet (pictured), HP’s Compaq Airlife 100 smartbook, HTC’s Droid Incredible and Nexus One smartphones, Huawei’s S7 tablet, and Lenovo’s LePhone smartphone.