14 DAY TRIAL // Chinese fabless CPU designer is preparing a new dual-core CortexA9 processor for Android tablets and the chip is apparently going to be quite an impressive design. The manufacturing will be handled by GlobalFoundries’ 28nm production lines.
We just reported here that GlobalFoundries is viewed by its customers as having a significantly better 28nm technological implementation than TSMC and this is mainly due to the use of FD-SOI wafers.
The main international competitor for Rockchip is the Taiwanese MediaTek giant that is making its chips at TSMC in 40nm technology.
Moving to 28nm technology will give Rockchip quite an edge as the projected frequency of the new processor is around 2 Hz and that’s considerably more than most of other SoCs in today’s Android tablets.
The famous SnapDragon S4 SoCs from Qualcomm as well as Nvidia’s famous Tegra 3 are both capable of reaching 2 GHz and even go beyond the mark, but the power consumption would jump up considerably when such a working regime would be implemented.
Reaching the 2 GHz mark is a significant achievement for Rockchip and, despite the fact that the new chip is not based on the new CoretxA9 design, it is clear that most single-threaded applications will enjoy the increased processor speed.
It will also be interesting to see how the battery life will be and we can surely expect Archos to use the new chips in their future tablets as soon as the SoC are available.
Rockchip is also working on a quad-core chip that will be available late this year, but nevertheless in 2012 not 2013.