With the growing workload of inference tasks on mobile devices, state-of-the-art neural architectures (NAs) are typically designed through Neural Architecture Search (NAS) to identify NAs with good tradeoffs between accuracy and efficiency (e.g., latency). Since measuring the latency of a huge set of candidate architectures during NAS is not scalable, approaches are needed for predicting end-to-end inference latency on mobile devices. Such predictions are challenging due to hardware heterogeneity, optimizations applied by ML frameworks, and the diversity of neural architectures. Motivated by these challenges, in this paper, we first quantitatively assess characteristics of neural architectures and mobile devices that have significant effects on inference latency. Based on this assessment, we propose a latency prediction framework which addresses these challenges by developing operation-wise latency predictors, under a variety of settings and a number of hardware devices, with multi-core CPUs and GPUs, achieving high accuracy in end-to-end latency prediction, as shown by our comprehensive evaluations. To illustrate that our approach does not require expensive data collection, we also show that accurate predictions can be achieved on real-world NAs using only small amounts of profiling data.

While Qualcomm has integrated several gaming-specific technologies into its Snapdragon mobile processors, on Tuesday the company announced something a little different: a version of its Snapdragon 730 optimized for gaming, dubbed the Snapdragon 730G. Though mobile gaming may be an idle pastime with American consumers, it's a way of life overseas. Over 586 million mobile gamers are in China alone--twice the population of the United States, according to Qualcomm's Hiren Bhinde at Qualcomm's technology summit last December. It isn't clear which phones and mobile devices Qualcomm has in mind for the Snapdragon 730G, but recent gaming phones from Asus ROG and Razer indicate that Qualcomm was designing for what they hope will be a trend. Though most premium smartphones use Qualcomm's 8-series CPUs like the Snapdragon 855, the new 7-series chips are designed for a slightly cheaper but still premium phone.

Flagship features continue to trickle down from $1,000 phones to their more-affordable brothers, and the same is happening with the chips that power them. Qualcomm unveiled new midrange mobile CPUs today that offer advanced features typically reserved for high-end phones, like AI processing and gaming enhancements. The Snapdragon 730, 730G and 665 are supposed to show up in (presumably cheaper-than-flagship) devices in mid-2019, meaning we may have a slate of budget-friendly handsets to look out for. For the first time, Qualcomm is launching a gaming-specific version of a chipset alongside the regular one. The Snapdragon 730G (G stands for Gaming, get it?)

Expensive flagship phones won't be the only way for you to play with advanced features like AR Emoji, Animoji and Face ID much longer. Qualcomm is making it easier for companies to create mid-range smartphones that pack those functions by launching a new mobile processor. The Snapdragon 710 will come with a multi-core AI Engine and support neural network processing, as well as image signal processors and graphics units that are typically found in higher-end chipsets. The 710 is the first of the 700-series, which was announced at MWC this year, and will sit above options like the 600- and 400-ranges but below top-tier chips like the Snapdragon 845. The Snapdragon 710 is a 10nm chipset that features a multi-core AR engine for on-device neural networking processing, as well as a Spectra 250 image signal processor that enables things like multi-frame noise reduction and AI camera features like video style transfer and active depth sensing for artificial bokeh.