14 DAY TRIAL // Late last year, South Korean mobile phone maker LG Electronics announced officially the launch of its first smartphone to pack a dual-core application processor inside, the LG Optimus 2X, and other vendors made similar moves at CES 2011 in Las Vegas in early January.
The number of multi-core smartphones is expected to increase impressively starting with the ongoing year, going up to 45 percent of all devices on the market, from only 15 percent during the ongoing year, a recent report from Strategy Analytics states.
According to the research firm, multi-core processors are expected to play an important role in the evolution of high-performance mobile computing at low-power consumption.
The said report comes from Strategy Analytics’ Handset Component Technologies service, and is called “Multi-core Processor Penetration in Smartphones Will Hit 15 Percent in 2011.”
Among the companies that would play important roles in the smartphone multi-core applications processor market, the research firm notes Samsung, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments, Marvell, Renesas and Broadcom.
“Strategy Analytics estimates that multi-core processor penetration in smartphones will rise from 15 percent in 2011 to 45 percent in 2015,” noted Stuart Robinson, Director of the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service.
“ARM’s Cortex-A9, Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A15 and Intel’s x86 architectures will contribute to the proliferation of multi-core processors in smartphones.
“We estimate Samsung will lead the smartphone multi-core applications processor market in 2011, followed by Qualcomm, NVIDIA, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments.”
Moreover, the report shows that multi-core processors are turning into a differentiating factor for manufacturers and component suppliers.
The report estimates that stand-alone applications processor vendors are those to dominate the multi-core applications processor market in the near-term, adding that Qualcomm and ST-Ericsson might be the only vendors to offer multi-core applications processors with integrated basebands in 2011.
“Strategy Analytics analysts believe that multi-core processors will re-ignite the battle between the stand-alone and baseband-integrated applications processor vendors in 2011,” commented, Sravan Kundojjala, Senior Analyst.
“The baseband-integrated multi-core applications processors will account for about one-third of total smartphone multi-core applications processor shipments in 2011, with potential for higher share in the future. By contrast, the market for single-core apps processors is now dominated by baseband-integrated products.”