Qualcomm shifts to offset stacked packaging for more direct cooling on its flagship chip
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 moves to Offset PoP so DRAM no longer covers the cores; the thermal gain is Qualcomm's claim until device tests confirm it.
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At the 2026 Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm announced that its sixth-generation Snapdragon 8 Elite uses a new Offset Package-on-Package design.
Conventional PoP stacks DRAM directly on top of the SoC, saving board space but blocking heat from escaping. The offset design physically shifts the hottest cores — CPU and GPU — so memory no longer fully covers the SoC, letting those areas contact vapor chambers or graphite sheets more directly.
Qualcomm says this sustains peak performance longer under gaming, AI inference and rendering loads. That remains a vendor claim; real sustained performance will only be verifiable through reviews and teardowns of shipping devices such as the Xiaomi 18 Pro.