Posts tagged arm
Apple announces iPhone 4S: A5 processor, HSDPA/CDMA, 8 MP, dual antenna
Oct 4th
Many expected Apple to launch a redesigned iPhone 5 at its phone event earlier today, but the company instead announced the iPhone 4S, an upgraded iPhone 4 that includes:
- Dual-core Apple A5 processor (ARM Cortex A9)
- Both HSDPA and CDMA radios built in (instead of separate variants, as in the iPhone 4)
- 8 MP camera with 1080p video recording
- Dual antenna (to split send/receive and address iPhone 4 “death grip” issues)
- Siri voice control
Apple also announced a Find My Friends feature that lets iPhone users track their friends on a map, similar to Google Latitude.
In the US, the new phone will be available on AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint for $199 (16GB), $299 (32GB), and $399 (64GB) on a 2-year contract. Meanwhile the iPhone 4 (16GB) will drop to $99 and the iPhone 3GS will be free, both on 2-year contracts.
Presales of the iPhone 4S begin Friday, and the phone should hit stores by October 14.
Source: Apple
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Project Denver: Windows 8 on Nvidia CPUs, Intel in the Crosshairs
Jan 5th
In the course of just a few hours, the seeds have been planted for a major upheaval in personal computing. Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s announcement that Windows 8 will support ARM processors, graphics chip maker Nvidia has revealed that it is developing a full lineup of ARM processors. ”Project Denver” will include CPUs for desktops, laptops, servers, and supercomputers and is an all-out assault on Intel’s PC market dominance.
In the past, Nvidia has licensed ARM cores for its Tegra and Tegra 2 smartphone/tablet chipsets (see here for more info), but with this announcement, Nvidia aims to turn itself into a full-fledged System-on-a-Chip (SoC) architecture designer– a major upgrade. The firm will integrate graphics chipsets into its CPUs, as Intel and AMD have done recently. The single most important factor that makes Project Denver significant, however, is Microsoft’s announcement: no longer being limited to just x86 chips (which Nvidia could never get a license from Intel to produce), Windows 8 PCs will be able to run on Nvidia’s processors without issue.
Read on for more about Nvidia’s new CPU project.
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Microsoft: Windows 8 will support ARM processors
Jan 5th
Microsoft dropped a bombshell at CES today, announcing that the next version of the Windows OS will run on ARM processors. The company stated that Windows for ARM will run on SoC (System on a Chip) architectures and will support hardware accelerated web browsing, media playback, and peripheral support on par with standard x86 Windows.
The move is aimed at extending the Windows experience to new devices. ”Windows PCs will continue to adapt and evolve,” CEO Steve Ballmer said in his keynote. “It means Windows will be everywhere on every kind of device without compromise.” The company showed off demo units running a future version of Windows (but with the user interface from Windows 7) on ARM chips from Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Texas Instruments.
The ARM-powered machines were running just Internet Explorer 9, Office for ARM, and an Epson printer driver. The Nvidia Tegra 2 demo box, however, was nonetheless impressive, smoothly playing the Iron Man 2 trailer in 1080p and running the IE9 HTML5 demos without any hiccups.
Read on for more details about Microsoft’s ARM announcement, and see our Smartphone Processor Guide for more information about ARM’s SoC processor architectures.
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Qualcomm ships dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon CPU for smartphones
Jun 3rd
Qualcomm just shipped the first dual-core smartphone processor, a 1.2 GHz Snapdragon chip. The new third-generation QSD8260 and 8660 chips are based on a die-shrunk 45nm version of the 1 GHz QSD8250 chip found in phones like the HTC HD2, EVO 4G, and Google’s Nexus One and should use less power while packing a lot more computing horsepower.
The third-generation Snapdragon CPUs offer a next-generation Adreno (ATI Imageon) GPU with support for Open GL ES 2.0 and Open VG 1.1, hardware acceleration for 1080p HD video encode/decode, and video output resolution up to WXGA (1280×800) with 24-bit color. They also pack a dedicated low power audio engine (to allow the rest of the CPU to go to sleep when you’re just playing music) and low power GPS electronics (to reduce power consumption in navigation apps).
The 8260 model packs an HSPA+ radio (GSM), while the 8660 supports both HSPA+ (GSM) and EV-DO Rev. B (CDMA). Qualcomm will also offer the QSD 8672, a 1.5 GHz version for tablets and larger devices that began sampling several months ago.
The CPUs are based on the same Scorpion core design as current Snapdragon chips, implementing the ARMv7 instruction set but offering slightly better performance clock-for-clock than ARM’s reference design, Cortex A8. For more information, check out our Smartphone Processor Guide.
No info on when the new chips will hit production smartphones, but we’re probably looking at early 2011 at the earliest.
Full press release after the break.
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iPad internals revealed: it’s a higher-clocked iPhone 3GS
Apr 7th
iFixit has followed up on its teardown of the new Apple iPad with an analysis of the chips inside. The Apple A4 CPU inside is a “package on package” design, with 256MB of Samsung SDRAM stacked right on top of the CPU, providing some benefits for both latency and power consumption. The CPU is most likely an ARM Cortex A8 design, paired with a PowerVR SGX 535 GPU– meaning that the iPad’s internals are identical to the iPhone 3GS’, except for a jump in CPU clock speed from 600 MHz to 1 GHz.
Anand compared the iPad to Google’s 1 GHz Snapdragon-powered Nexus One phone, finding the iPad was quicker in some tests. However, the two devices were running different operating systems and the iPad has a much larger battery (which may allow for Apple to more aggressively push performance over battery life), thus limiting the usefulness of the comparison.
For more information on Cortex A8, Snapdragon, and other mobile chipsets, check out the TechAutos Smartphone Processor Guide.
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Making Sense of Smartphone Processors: The Mobile CPU/GPU Guide
Mar 14th
Smartphone manufacturers these days boast of their phones’ computer-like capabilities, from desktop-like internet browsing to HD video playback. They toss around spec sheets filled with processor names like ARM11, Cortex A8, Snapdragon, Tegra, OMAP, Armada, and more. What do these all mean, and how do the various chips compare? That’s what we’re going to take a look at today. More >
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Intel, Nokia to reveal “Penwell” Atom-based smartphone platform at MWC?
Feb 11th
Intel’s strategy for many years has been “x86 everywhere,” bringing the processors that power desktop computers down to laptops, netbooks, TVs, DVRs, and more, and now it looks like the company might finally be ready for a push into smartphones, courtesy of a deal with Nokia. Engadget reports that Intel and Nokia will make a joint presentation at Mobile World Congress next week. While the event will probably be related to something simple, like a refreshed Booklet (Nokia’s netbook), we’re told Intel and Nokia might begin to talk about a new wireless platform combining Intel’s CPU bits with a Nokia radio chipset. More information below.
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