First Multi-Core Mobile Platform Demonstrated
ST-Ericsson and ARM announced today that they will be demonstrating the world's first Symmetric Multi Processing (SMP)-enabled mobile platform at a private event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The same Cortex-A9 multicore processor has been postulated as the CPU behind the rumors of Apple's next generation iPhone. ZDNet reported that the next generation iPhone could support up to quad-core processors. There has been some debate about how quickly ARM would be able to ramp up these processors as the original timeline for the Cortex-A9 had targeted late 2009/early 2010.
Apple appears to have invested heavily in bringing ARM design and development in-house with their acquisition of P.A. Semi and speculation that they are an architectural licensee of ARM's processors.
The technological breakthrough is the first of its kind and is based on the ARM(R) Cortex(TM)-A9 multicore processor, which represents a significant leap from previous generations of baseband/application processor architectures by providing unprecedented levels of performance and power efficiency.
An ST-Ericsson representative explains that having multiple processor cores will improve real-time performance on mobile devices for a better user experience. The demonstration model will, of course, be running the Symbian OS.The same Cortex-A9 multicore processor has been postulated as the CPU behind the rumors of Apple's next generation iPhone. ZDNet reported that the next generation iPhone could support up to quad-core processors. There has been some debate about how quickly ARM would be able to ramp up these processors as the original timeline for the Cortex-A9 had targeted late 2009/early 2010.
Apple appears to have invested heavily in bringing ARM design and development in-house with their acquisition of P.A. Semi and speculation that they are an architectural licensee of ARM's processors.
Top Rated Comments
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39 months ago
Yes 4 cores!
DSP, Radio, and 2 application processors; or all application processors.
Symbian OS has supported this for the past year & a half. Now we'll see some real applications take flight.
Btw, ARM themselves do not have to produce the ARM-9/-11 cpu's but Texas Instruments, Freescale and many others in the business can as well.
DSP, Radio, and 2 application processors; or all application processors.
Symbian OS has supported this for the past year & a half. Now we'll see some real applications take flight.
Btw, ARM themselves do not have to produce the ARM-9/-11 cpu's but Texas Instruments, Freescale and many others in the business can as well.
39 months ago
It amazes me that they can fit quad core into an iphone, but only dual core into the iMacs and Macbook Pro's (I know they are completely different chips, but still it's weird).
39 months ago
This a great for the iPhone. Hardware wise, it's what I feel it's becoming weak in. Seeing as the current chipset has been in the iPhone for nearly 2 years already, it's getting outdated... I'm curious to see some processor beenchmark comparisons if that is at all possible within the next few months. Although if apple decides to use the processor I'm sure they will have their 4X or 6X faster! Banners everywhere. We'll see, sounds good though.
39 months ago
It amazes me that they can fit quad core into an iphone, but only dual core into the iMacs and Macbook Pro's (I know they are completely different chips, but still it's weird).
It's not a question of "fitting." A Microprocessor is just that, micro. Therefore, 4 of them would still take up very little space (though this is, of course, a problem with mobile devices, where everything is crammed together as closely as possible).
I suspect the reason why you don't see any quad-core Macbooks is because of power consumption and maybe even software compatibility.
39 months ago
I really don't have any iphone performance complaints. Payable data roaming price structures or improved 3G speeds would be nicer :D
I can dream, can't I?
I can dream, can't I?
39 months ago
This might just tempt me to upgrade from my 2G (EDGE) 16GB iPhone. Current 3G has no apeal to me.
39 months ago
good grief, now the pointless arms race for packing more and more unneeded clock cycles into even mobile devices has begun. So same with laptops now we have to look forward to battery times not improving just so application developers can be spoiled and develop bloated inefficient software that do half as much with twice as much power.
39 months ago
This looks to be the very beginnings of the Multi-core Architecture = 2010. I think we'll see Cortex A-8 in 2009 like the Pre and Archos phones
http://blogs.computerworld.com/apples_tablet_to_be_based_on_arm_cortex_architecture
http://blogs.computerworld.com/apples_tablet_to_be_based_on_arm_cortex_architecture
39 months ago
This might just tempt me to upgrade from my 2G (EDGE) 16GB iPhone. Current 3G has no apeal to me.
Why?
Why would the promise of possibly faster processor times tempt you, when the additional features in iPhone 3G did not? It doesn't offer you anything extra, just (possibly) faster applications.
If it's speed improvement you were looking for, perhaps getting an iPhone 3G, with it's HSDPA connectivity, might have been beneficial?
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