Google and Qualcomm have embarked on a collaborative project aimed at extending software update support for phones to four major Android version updates and four years of security updates on selected Snapdragon system chips. The first new, longer upgrade support circuit is Qualcomm’s upcoming flagship Snapdragon 888.

Project Treble, released by Google three years ago, has been successfully accelerating update schedules for Android phones since its release. In practice, it was, in short, a redesign of Google’s Android operating system that separated the operating system’s software framework and manufacturers’ device-specific low-level software solutions, thus enabling easier and more compatible upgrades for phone manufacturers with a standardized platform. These changes will allow telephone manufacturers to support their devices faster and at lower cost due to reduced workload.

However, Treble’s effects on circuit manufacturers have not actually been as rosy as in theory, and with software changes, circuit design has become more complex. With new versions of the operating system and new telephony technology, Google needs to update the interface with manufacturers ’low-level software solutions to support new solutions. However, this support is only required for new equipment, not for old equipment receiving upgrades, which is reflected in the complexity of the work of system circuit manufacturers. Thus, PCB manufacturers have to support several Android software frameworks and generations of vendor solutions, so that three generations of upgrades for a PCB manufacturer can mean up to six different combinations of software solutions for one circuit

.As a result, Qualcomm and other circuit manufacturers have often supported only two major Android version updates and three-year security updates on their system circuits.

Now, however, this is about to change, as Google has announced that it is working with Qualcomm to further develop Project Treble. Google has introduced no-retroactivity support for system circuits in its operating system, which means that system support does not have to be completely new with new versions of Android, but released for the Andorid 11 platform. the circuit can use the same interface solutions to support updates up to Android 14. In addition, Google is partnering with Qualcomm to allow a circuit manufacturer to support multiple of its districts on the same framework without the need for separate district-specific software support.

Source: Google,