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ARM's latest processor design puts fast 4K graphics on your phone
You've probably heard no end of hype for 4K video on TVs and computers, and now it's about to invade your phone... at least, so long as ARM has its way. The company just took the wraps off of Cortex-A72, a processor reference design that promises a huge boost to computing power, especially when graphics come into play. Thanks to updates that include optimizations for an efficient 16-nanometer chipmaking process, 30 percent more memory performance and an 80 percent speedier graphics core (the Mali-T880), the A72 is about 3.5 times more powerful than ARM's earlier Cortex-A15. That's beefy enough to record 4K video at an extra-smooth 120 frames per second -- many current smartphones only manage 30FPS at best. You should get "console-class" gaming, too, and there's a promise of Google Now-style natural voice commands that don't depend on a distant server to interpret what you're saying.
Jon Fingas02.03.2015
Huawei's first octa-core chip promises faster LTE than its rivals
While MediaTek's trotting its way into the premium smartphone market with an LTE octa-core chip later this year, Huawei's creeping up right behind with its own octa-core offering. Like Samsung's newer Exynos 5 Octa variants, Huawei's new Kirin 920 consists of quad Cortex-A15 plus quad Cortex-A7 CPUs that work simultaneously, as well as a powerful Mali-T628 GPU. But what makes this 28nm chip special is its integrated multi-mode LTE Cat 6 radio, meaning it can offer data speeds of up to 300Mbps on networks that are set up for carrier aggregation. These are already live or being tested in the likes of Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Germany.
Richard Lai06.06.2014
China's Allwinner also has an octa-core chip, touts powerful graphics
Samsung, MediaTek, Huawei and even Qualcomm are now in the octa-core SoC game, but there's always space for more. The latest member is China's Allwinner Technology, who's best known for making the chipsets inside many low-end devices. Like most of its competitors, Allwinner's UltraOcta A80 silicon (pictured above on a development board) uses ARM's big.LITTLE heterogeneous multi-processing design, meaning it can simultaneously run on all eight cores -- four low-power Cortex-A7 and four high-end Cortex-A15. The chip also features Imagination Technologies' 64-core PowerVR G6230 GPU, which promises to deliver "a twofold increase in graphics" performance when compared to Allwinner's previous flagship SoC, the A31 series. We'll spare you from all the nitty-gritty, but you can learn more in the source links below. Expect to see the UltraOcta A80 in affordable devices "in the next few months."
Richard Lai02.25.2014
MediaTek's new octa-core processor to compete with Qualcomm over the premium LTE smartphone market
MediaTek, a chipset manufacturer based out of Taiwan, has been making some huge moves lately. Just over two months ago, it came out with the "world's first true octa-core" processor, which consisted of eight Cortex-A7 cores capable of operating simultaneously. Now that ARM has announced Cortex-A17 technology, however, MediaTek is ready to start sampling a new octa-core chip that consists of four 2.2-2.5GHz A17 cores and four 1.7GHz A7s, and comes with a Rogue PowerVR Series6 GPU to take care of any graphical needs you might have. As an aside, the A17 cores come with a 60 percent improvement in performance over the current-gen A9s, and are primarily designed to make midrange smartphones and tablets even faster. That said, MediaTek tells us that its new chips, known as the MT6595, are actually meant to be featured in premium devices and will square off directly against Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 and 805. And it's certainly got a few noteworthy features: first, the chip will use ARM's big.LITTLE architecture and Heterogeneous Multi-Processing, which means you can use all eight cores for the most intense tasks, or you can use just one or two at a time for incredibly basic activities. The company claims that this chip will be faster and more power efficient than the octa-core Exynos options, which feature four A15 cores and four A7s at lower frequencies. Additionally, the MT6595 claims to be the first octa-core LTE system-on-chip with an H.265 Ultra HD Codec built-in to the platform, which offers 4K2K video recording and playback capabilities. In much the same way that most manufacturers don't enable all of a chip's features, however, it'll be up to each individual company to add it in. The chips will begin sampling to phone makers and carriers in the first half of this year, and it's expected to arrive in products during the second half. And while it should find its way into smartphones and tablets around the world, MediaTek wants the MT6595 to enjoy a huge presence in the US.
Brad Molen02.11.2014
Huawei joins the octa-core club with a high-spec mobile chip of its own
It's been a year since Huawei's Richard Yu's teased his company's octa-core HiSilicon system-on-chip, and according to the exec's recent Sina Weibo post (screenshot after the break), said product is finally ready. In fact, Yu revealed that his company's launched two new 28nm HPM chips. The octa-core model (likely the K3V3) features the usual quad Cortex-A15 plus quad Cortex-A7 big.LITTLE combo (as implemented by Samsung Exynos 5 Octa); and there's also a new quad-core Cortex-A9 model (likely the K3V2 Pro), which succeeds the 40nm K3V2 that features the same architecture. What's unclear is whether the octa-core chip will allow all eight cores to run simultaneously, but what we do know is that both chips come with a multi-mode LTE modem that will also handle both WCDMA and China Mobile's TD-SCDMA radios. Yu also made a separate post to say we're entering the era of 64-bit octa-core processor (Cortex-A53 plus Cortex-A57) this year, but the message was deleted soon afterwards. What a tease. Anyhow, we have a feeling that Huawei will be showing off its first device powered by its own octa-core chip at MWC next month. That's not to say Huawei's saying goodbye to Qualcomm and MediaTek, though -- Yu confirmed that he'll have more "high-end" devices that will feature chips supplied by these two companies.
Richard Lai01.16.2014
MediaTek launches world's first true octa-core mobile chip, first devices due end of year
Qualcomm's nightmare has finally come true. Earlier today, MediaTek officially introduced the world's first true octa-core mobile processor, MT6592, and the first devices to feature it are expected to arrive as soon as end of year. This 28nm chip packs eight low-power Cortex-A7 cores, and courtesy of the Heterogeneous Multi-Processing use model on top of ARM's big.LITTLE architecture (though it's actually "LITTLE.LITTLE" in this case), all eight cores can operate simultaneously -- at up to between 1.7GHz and 2GHz, depending on the bin. MediaTek pointed that Chrome can already make use of all eight cores, and likewise with some map apps, video players plus multi-window function. According to the company's figures, the MT6592 manages to beat what appears to be the quad-core Snapdragon 800 in benchmarks, power consumption (as low as 40 percent) and temperature. You can see the full detail in this article's gallery.
Richard Lai11.20.2013
Exynos 5 Octa demos 8 cores working at once and other feats of CPU strength (video)
Just in case yesterday's news that Samsung is ready to enable new features on its Exynos 5 Octa chips wasn't clear, ARM has published a few demo videos to show what it can do. All three are embedded after the break, and the first one highlights how the Exynos 5 Octa 5420 can activate some or all of its 8 cores to maximize responsiveness while launching and using Quickoffice. As you can see above in the screenshot, all eight cores are activated while launching the app, then unused ones switch off for more efficiency. Another video shows how it runs Angry Birds Rio on just the four Cortex-A7 "LITTLE" side of the CPU, rarely activating any of their more power-hungry A15 friends. The last demo video shows how its Mali-T628 GPU activates to process images faster and more efficiently than the CPU alone can.
Richard Lawler09.11.2013
Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa CPUs will be able to use all eight cores at once in Q4
We'll have to change our terminology for Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa mobile chips now. We've been calling them "not-quite" eight core CPUs since they can't actually use all eight at once, but the company's new Heterogeneous Multi-Processing solution is going to change that. Once it's available in Q4 it will let devices access both sides of the big.LITTLE ARM configuration simultaneously, which it claims will increase both performance and efficiency. While software threads with high priority use the "big" A15 core, lower priority tasks can run on the "small" A7 without needing to switch back and forth. Samsung isn't the only one running this setup however, as MediaTek announced an implementation for its MT8135 back in July. There are more details included in the press release (after the break) but we're not seeing any confirmation if this will ever be enabled on existing / announced devices like some flavors of the Galaxy S 4 or the Meizu MX3. Either way, the folks at Qualcomm might want to put together another video.
Richard Lawler09.09.2013
MediaTek's MT8135 SoC does dual-core big.LITTLE MP, packs PowerVR Series6 GPU
It'll be a while before MediaTek's true octa-core SoC makes its glorious arrival, but for the time being, the company's unveiling something just as interesting -- and perhaps more practical. The new MT8135 announced today is a "quad-core" SoC aimed at "the middle- to high-end tier of the tablet OEM market." We quote "quad-core," because it actually consists of two clusters: dual Cortex-A15 cores and dual Cortex-A7 cores. But the good news is that unlike the original big.LITTLE configuration where only one cluster can operate at any given time (depending on how heavy the workload is), MediaTek's confirmed that it has implemented big.LITTLE MP ("MP" as in heterogeneous multi-processing) in the MT8135, meaning both the A15 and the A7 clusters can operate simultaneously. Another highlight of this MT8135 is that it'll be one of the first SoCs -- alongside LG's H13 (which we've seen first-hand), Renesas' APE6 and Renesas' R-Car H2 -- to come with Imagination Technologies' almighty PowerVR Series6 GPU. Specifically, this is the PowerVR G6200 which, as part of the MT8135, can apparently deliver "up to four times more ALU (arithmetic logic unit) horsepower" than the Series5XT GPU on the cheaper, quad-A7 MT8125. And unsurprisingly, the MT8135 gets the same Miracast wireless video goodie given to the MT8125; though it's also worth noting that the latter only supports LPDDR2 RAM instead of the more powerful LPDDR3. Sadly, there's no further information regarding availability, but you can kill some time by checking out more technical details in the video (with benchmarks; even though Qualcomm's been mysteriously left out) and press releases after the break.
Richard Lai07.29.2013
MediaTek confirms true octa-core processor in the works
Earlier this month there was a whisp of octa-core colored smoke coming from MediaTek. Today it's more of a roaring camp fire, with the chip-maker going official -- fully announcing its new octa-core processor ambitions. The firm stops short of giving us the actual nitty-gritty specifications that many of you will be waiting for, instead taking the chance to remind us that Arm-based chips will be true eight-cores-at-once processing, and none of this big.LITTLE dallying. The word is these will float around the 2GHz mark on arrival, which last we heard was pegged for November. We're not suggesting the timing of this announcement was planned, but it looks, for now, like 8 is the current lucky number.
James Trew07.27.2013
Linux kernel 3.10 arrives with ARM big.LITTLE support
Thanks to Linus Torvalds' figurative stroke of the pen, the Linux kernel 3.10 is now final -- paving the way for its inclusion in a bevy of Linux distributions, and even offshoots such as Android and Chrome OS. The fresh kernel brings a good number of changes, such as timerless multitasking, a new caching implementation and support for the ARM big.LITTLE architecture. In simplistic terms, the new multitasking method should help improve performance and latency by firing the system timer only once per second -- rather than 1,000 times -- when tasks are running. Meanwhile, users with both traditional hard drives and SSDs will find performance benefits from bcache, which brings writeback caching and a filesystem agnostic approach to leveraging the SSD for caching operations. Also of significance, Linux kernel 3.10 enhances ARM support by including the big.LITTLE architecture, which combines multiple cores of different types -- commonly the Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 -- that focus on either power savings or performance. The full list of improvements is rather lengthy, but if you feel like nerding out with the changelog, just grab a caffeinated beverage and get to it.
Zachary Lutz07.01.2013
ARM unveils Cortex-A12 CPU and Mali-T622 GPU in expectation of a mid-range boom
Few trend-spotters would disagree with the following prediction from ARM, but it's worth laying it out anyway: Of the 300 million mobile devices sold in 2010, the majority cost over $400. Within the next two years, however, these "crazy money" products (as a spokesperson described them) may represent just 25 percent of the total mobile market -- still huge in absolute terms, since almost two billion phones and tablets are forecast to be sold in 2015, but a distinct minority relative to entry-level and mid-range options. In an effort to convert these expectations into an even taller heap of gold, ARM has just announced a new mid-range core, the Cortex-A12, which is designed to replace the aging Cortex-A9 while offering a 40 percent boost in performance. This gain will likely come with the added advantage of better battery life, since the Cortex-A12 will initially be fabricated at 28nm instead of 40nm, and will be offered to manufacturers alongside a new Mali GPU (the Mali-T622) and video engine (Mali-V500) that promise further power savings of their own. The Cortex-A12 will also support big.LITTLE configurations, allowing it to be installed alongside Cortex-A7 cores that will take over for low-effort tasks in order make further power savings. Big.LITTLE hasn't really blown us away so far, at least not on the Octa-core Galaxy S 4, but its wrinkles may well have been ironed out by mid 2014, which is when the Cortex-A12 is due to land. Check out the PR for more technical details on each component. Richard Lai contributed to this report. %Gallery-190050%
Sharif Sakr06.02.2013
Samsung puts Exynos 5 Octa into production: guess who's the first customer
That Galaxy S 4 isn't going to compute tasks through sheer force of will, you know. Just a day after Samsung unveiled the smartphone as its inaugural Exynos 5 Octa device, the company has confirmed that the not-really-eight-core ARM processor should be in mass production during the second quarter of the year, or between April and June. There aren't many more details to share beyond what the company mentioned at CES, but that doesn't diminish what could be a best-of-all-worlds processor: the automatic switching between four Cortex-A15 and four Cortex-A7 cores should give it a performance edge over many of its peers while reducing power consumption by up to 70 percent. We also know that the Octa's graphics performance has largely caught up to peers versus earlier Exynos 4 designs, as Imagination Technologies has confirmed that its PowerVR SGX544MP is providing enough muscle to double 3D performance over the creaky Mali-400 in the Exynos 4 Quad. About the only mystery left is whether or not many companies beyond Samsung will get a chance at some Exynos 5 Octa silicon, although there's one or two prospects.
Jon Fingas03.15.2013
Samsung puts latest Exynos 5 Octa chip into a prototype tablet, we go hands-on (video)
The Exynos 5 Octa was definitely one of the biggest things to come out of CES. Given how well the regular dual-core Exynos V performs in the Nexus 10 and Chromebook, devices containing the souped-up Octa version could be really special. As you probably know already, we're looking at four Cortex-A15 cores for when you need raw performance for gaming or media creation, and then four energy-saving Cortex-A7 cores for less demanding tasks like surfing or watching video. We've just seen how fast and fluid this big.LITTLE core-switching technology is, courtesy of a Samsung reference tablet on show at ARM's booth at MWC -- check it out for yourself after the break.
Sharif Sakr02.25.2013
Renesas announces big.LITTLE mobile processor with next-gen PowerVR Series6 graphics
If Samsung likes an open playing field, it'll not be best pleased by this latest announcement from Japanese chip maker Renesas. Uncannily named the "APE6", it directly copies the same big.LITTLE design of ARM cores found in Sammy's Exynos Octa. The are four Cortex-A15s paired with the same number of Cortex-A7s, allowing a phone or tablet to switch between the two quad-core configurations depending on its workload. Interestingly, whereas the Exynos Octa's GPU has been rumored to contain a last-gen PowerVR Series5 GPU similar to that found in the iPad and PS Vita, the APE6 will come with a more future proof Series6 "Rogue" design. We've already spent some time with this GPU and it'll be a good day when we can finally try it out in a finished device and stack it up against a rival bearing Samsung internals.
Sharif Sakr02.25.2013
Samsung to outline 8-core big.LITTLE ARM processor in February
Samsung's processor design team has been on a roll with fast chips this year with the Exynos 4 Quad and Exynos 5 Dual. Based on its agenda for the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, that momentum isn't about to stop. A company presentation at the event on February 19th will delve into a new heterogeneous, 8-core processor that relies on ARM's concept of big.LITTLE computing: one half is a quad-core, 1.8GHz ARM Cortex-A15 that will do all the heavy lifting, while the other is a quad 1.2GHz Cortex-A7 that takes over in quieter moments. We don't know much more about the chip beyond the expected 28-nanometer manufacturing process, but it's easy to see a mobile chip that's fast without having to consume much energy in its downtime. Most of the mystery surrounds where Samsung will launch the processor first, rather than what it can do: the big.LITTLE chip would be most valuable in a smartphone, but a potentially large size could relegate it to tablets early on.
Jon Fingas11.20.2012
ARM unveils Cortex-A7 processor, 'big.LITTLE' computing
Fancy a glimpse of the future? That little psychedelic beauty on the right is ARM's brand new Cortex-A7 processor. Its spec sheet might not seem so colorful at first glance, because it doesn't really do things any faster than existing high-end smartphone processors. However, this UK-based chip designer isn't known for bumping its gums, so it pays to look a little deeper. For a start, the Cortex-A7 is built using a 28nm process that makes it five times smaller and more efficient than the current-gen Cortex-A8. It's also cheap enough to power sub-$100 handsets, so we could be pulling GSII-like tricks on budget phones within a couple of years. Is that it? Nope, there's more: perhaps the most important feature of the A7 is that it can be combined with much higher-power cores like the Cortex-A15 side-by-side on the same chip. This allows a super-phone or tablet to switch between two totally different processing units depending on how much power is needed at the time. ARM calls this "Big.LITTLE" computing," and a similar concept is already in use on NVIDIA's Tegra 3 (aka Kal-El) SoC, which we'll see imminently in the next Asus Transformer. However, the Tegra 3 uses five identical Cortex-A9 cores, whereas a device that mix-and-matches the A15 and A7 could potentially deliver higher highs and lower lows, giving you speed when you need it and amazing battery life when you don't. How cute is that? Full PR after the break.
Sharif Sakr10.20.2011