ARM-Based Mobile OMAP 5 Processors from TI

Omap 5 too is addressed to the mobile market with 3D capability in mind. This is a competitor to some other processors that were announced in and around the Mobile World conference in Feb/Mar this year. Claims are impressive. For example it should deliver twice the processing power of the earlier Omap 4, five times graphics processing and a power consumption reduction by 60%!


The OMAP 5 will have ARM Cortex-A15 CPU cores, two of them each running at 2 GHz. Two more M4 cores take over real time workloads. Stereoscopic 3D applications,  video conferencing, 2D and 3D graphics processing etc will be addressed by the chip. Record and playback of 3D video, convert 2D video to 3D, at 1080p resolution, etc. can be supported. Devices using the device should become available by mid next year, with the chip coming out about now.




Texas Instruments To Launch Feature-Rich, ARM-Based Mobile OMAP 5 Processors

Samsung to Start Making New Exynos Processors Next Month - PCWorld

Samsung named a processor directed at mobile space Exynos in February this year. the first processor is designated Exynos 4210.  This is a 2 core, 1 GHz processor. This should be capable of handling HD video and yet save on battery life. That is the race anyway for all smartphone processor vendors. Incidentally Samsung used to manufacture A4 processor for Apple, the earlier generation chip that has been used in iPad and iPhone 4 devices. Apple uses A5 for its iPad 2 and Samsung does not make it any more. Exynos is a successor to the Hummingbird family, developed jointly with Intrinsity. However, they have been bought out by Apple. hence Samsung had to create a different identity in the processor family. Exynos is based, no prize in guessing, on ARM architecture!


Samsung to Start Making New Exynos Processors Next Month - PCWorld

New Qualcomm Processor

APQ 8060, part of Snapdragon family,  is the designation for the new processor announced in Feb this year. Directed at mobile space this is a part of the next generation, a dual core affair. Qualcomm says it uses the ARM v7 instruction set but optimizes its own hardware. This is in the same class as ARM Cortex A8, A9 processors.The chip comes integrated with Adreno 220 graphics engine. In the race to support HD video, 1080 preferrably, the company claims this processor should be able to support 3D video playback and capture, Web browsing with Adobe Flash 10, and playback of 1080p 30fps HD video.

HP TouchPad Is First Device to Use New Qualcomm Processor

New ARM Cortex-R Processors For 3G, WiMax, 4G, etc.

Two more generations of the Cortex processors, R5 and R7, were announced by ARM by end January. That ARM is the leader in most things mobile as also a large slice of embedded stuff is indisputable. These two are clear signs of what's to come. They are positioning these at 3G and 4G, LTE use as well as mass storage devices, in-car entertainment applications as well as industrial equipment. The R5 enhances features of R4, it predecessor. low latency peripheral port (LLPP) improves peripheral I/O. R5 also has am accelerator coherency port that helps cache coherence.

R7 add substantial number new features. This should improve performance significantly over the older members of the family. Out of order execution, superscalar execution, dynamic register renaming, better branch prediction, hardware assist for floating point calculations, including divide are some of these features.These processors, according to ARM, should take care of real time processing needs of the future handsets.

ARM launches Cortex-R processors - 3G, WiMax, 4G, more

Future Computer Designs Need Not Be Von Neumann Architecture

With the availability of multicore processors computer architectures need not be Von Neumann architectures anymore. This architecture makes strict serial execution of instructions. Whereas with so many cores available one can issue more than one instruction as long as the input of one does not depend on output of another.

That is much like the multiple execution unit computer we all read about. Vishkin proposes an architecture based on a central coordinating core with multiple execution cores. When execution has to serial, the coordinator can take care of it. Multiple cores take care of independent parallel instruction issues. He proposes this in an article in Communications ACM, Jan 2011.

Radical Redesign' Urged for Future Computers - PCWorld

Freescale offers take on tablets, 3-D units

Freescale announced a new line of processors for the exploding tablet market during the consumer electronics show in January this year. Director of global marketing, consumer-segment marketing four kind of things that will start appearing in tablets of the future. This line of quad core processors would take care of the increased processing load when they start appearing in 18 months. That would make it by this time next year. The predictions were four fold.

First consumers will start seeing augmented reality applications. For example, in a shopping mall, you would be able to find out who's offering what, what prices and many other details. Even though you are able to look into a few shop-fronts physically, you cannot find this kind of details. These applications will let you look up details from stores that are on a different floor or a different corner of the building! Well, that kind of application would really be useful. If you are able to find if the particular book you are looking for is available or not without going inside and browsing around, that would really be helpful!

Second prediction was about gaming capabilities in tablets.3D and desktop gaming coming on the tablets is a easy prediction to do. It will happen and the Freescale processors are equipped with 4 cores and 3 graphics units to tackle the load.

He predicts the tablets will be used for content creation, going beyond the content consumption at present. That is a usual progression too. People will start creating stuff after a while and if the find the platform has the power to do the job. Part of this prediction is that the tablets will start sporting 2 cameras to make 3D video creation possible.

The way 3D is becoming popular the 3D creation coming on the tablets is not very much of a stretch to believe. All four look likely scenarios. Even if the details do not work out exactly as predicted, that the tablets will need 4 core power is not difficult to see. 2 core tablets are already on the market!

Freescale offers take on tablets, 3-D units