Google formally launched its Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro smartphones on Tuesday, both aggressively priced at $599 and $899, with the first custom-designed Arm SoC called Tensor.
Tensor has a custom Tensor Processing Unit for Machine Learning built in and is designed to compete with Snapdragon 888 from Qualcomm used in other high-end Android phones
Tensor also has two high-power application cores using Arm X-1, two mid-range cores, four low-power cores and a dedicated Titan M2 coprocessor used for security, a private compute core and an image processing core. (All Pixel 6 customers get five years of security updates.) The Pixel 6 comes with 8GB RAM, while the Pro comes with 12 GB RAM.
The new processor allows for image editing such as a Magic Eraser tool that deletes undesirable elements in images almost automatically. As Google explained, Magic Eraser will suggest what elements should be eliminated, but users can also circle elements to be dropped. There’s also a new long exposure and motion blur capability.
Speed and heterogeneity
When announced in early August, Google said Tensor will make its two new Pixel phones the “fastest, smartest and most secure Pixel phones yet.”
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Tensor CPU performance on Pixel 6 is 80% faster than Pixel 5, while GPU performance is 370% faster, Google said, but then described why speed is not necessarily the best measure of a phone’s capabilities.
“Peak CPU and GPU speeds look great in benchmarks, but they don’t always reflect real user experience,” said Monika Gupta senior director of product management.
Tensor is designed to support 'heterogeneous' computing, she added. “As software apps on mobile phones become more complex, they run on multiple parts of the chips. This is heterogeneous computing. To get good performance for these complex apps, we made system level decisions for the [Tensor] SoC. We ensured different subsystems inside Tensor work really well together rather than optimizing individual elements for peak speeds.”
Both phones have wireless charging and fast charging support but there’s no charger in the box. They support 5G, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, while the Pro version has millimeter wave support and a UWB chip. The batteries are larger than in the past, with 4614 mAh in the 6 and 5004 mAh in the 6 Pro.
Pixel 6 has a new 50 MP camera to capture more light. It has a 6.4-inch display with a 90 Hz refresh rate. The Pixel 6 Pro has a 6.71-inch display and 120 GHz refresh rate with three rear cameras. There’s the 50 MP main lens, 12 MP ultrawide and 48 MP telephoto with 4x optical zoom and 20x Super Res Zoom.
A full comparison of specs for both phones is online.
Big industry changes with Tensor
Tensor follows a trend that includes Apple’s M1 and A15 Bionic chips to build custom silicon. The essential difference is that both companies are designing software and the processor hardware at the same time for better efficiency instead of working with a basic processor design that requires software to be built atop it.
Samsung has been doing roughly the same thing with Exynos chips. The South Korean Samsung is expected to offer big changes with the Galaxy S22 next year.
Custom processors are a challenge to chipmakers like Intel and AMD. Tensor and Apple’s and Samsung’s chips might push bigger long-term changes in how other OEMs develop chips for use in smartphones, but it isn’t clear how the custom process trend will affect processors used in servers and other products.
Google’s Pixel 6 launch was pre-recorded and made available early Tuesday: