14 DAY TRIAL // ARM continues to push its technology into the mobile space, as an increasing number of chip makers are licensing the company's solutions for use in some of their upcoming products. The latest to join is Broadcom, one of the industry's leading providers of wired and wireless communications solutions, which has just announced that it has signed a major licensing agreement for the ARM Cortex A9 MPCore multicore processor. According to the two companies, the agreement will enable Broadcom to use the technology for its next-generation mobile, wireless and other consumer electronics applications.
“This latest agreement with a recognized market leader in wireless system integration demonstrates the continued market momentum for the ARM Cortex-A9 processor and ARM multicore technology,” said Mike Inglis, EVP and general manager, Processor Division, ARM. “By leveraging the performance and power efficiency benefits of the Cortex family of processors along with the other advanced ARM technology, Broadcom can offer feature-rich, future proof solutions for every segment of the wireless market.”
According to ARM, its Cortex-A9 MPCore has been designed to deliver scalable performance for today's embedded devices, while also offering a considerable reduction of the power consumption. A single-core Cortex A9 processor is said to be capable of delivering double the performance of today's smartphone processors, while an ARM MPCore technology can further increase that performance boost, according to ARM.
In addition, the two companies have announced that the agreement also includes the ARM NEON SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) technology for the ARM Cortex-A series processors, which are designed to enable acceleration for feature-rich multimedia and gaming applications.
“This licensing agreement extends our ARM processor portfolio. The flexibility and scalability of the Cortex-A9 processor enable us to optimize development costs by addressing the requirements of wireless applications from a common core platform,” said Nambi Seshadri, VP and CTO, Mobile Platforms and Wireless Connectivity Division, Broadcom Corporation.