With Qualcomm’s single-core Snapdragon processor already featuring on most of the currently-available smartphones - including the Google Nexus One, the HTC Droid Incredible, and the HTC Evo 4G -, the company has further upped the smartphone-processor game with its first dual-core Snapdragon processors.

Called the MSM8260 and MSM8660, the faster Qualcomm dual-core Snapdragon processors boast speeds of up to 1.2 GHz; and are equivalent to Apple’s A4 silicon – currently the only dual-core processor in the market; and the chip around which Apple is building its next-generation hardware.

While Intel is also reportedly designing a dual-core Atom, Qualcomm has further revealed that its dual-core chipsets – likely to hit the stores by the end of the year – have already caught the attention of handset manufacturers; with most of them having already begun designing their products based on these forthcoming processors.

Noting that Qualcomm’s first-generation Snapdragon chipsets practically “set a new standard for advanced smartphones and smartbook devices,” Steve Mollenkopf, Executive VP of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, said: “Our second-generation solutions are already shipping in volume.”

Mentioning the advantages of dual-core chips, Qualcomm said that that the higher processing speeds of these chips will facilitate better multimedia performance. Equipped with a graphics processing unit with 3-D and 2-D acceleration engines for better rendering, the chips will also boast 1080p video encoding and decoding capabilities, and integrated low-power GPS.