14 DAY TRIAL // Texas Instruments is said to be planning on assaulting the market for higher-frequency ARM central processing units by developing a certain dual-core chip based on the Cortex A9.
While NVIDIA does seem to be holding a sort of monopoly on the so-called market for dual-core Cortex A9 chips, this situation will eventually change.
In fact, Texas Instruments is said to be planning on challenging this product by releasing its own dual-cores, one of them bearing a fairly high clock speed.
To be more specific, a certain report states that TI will build a processor capable of running at 1.5 GHz, a goal which, if met, will likely put pressure on all other ARM players to do the same.
Currently, TI is working on the OMAP 4430 Cortex A9, a two-core unit whose frequency is of 1 GHz, set to reach the US during Q1, 2011 (Part of the RIM Playbook Blackberry tablet).
The 1.5GHz CPU will be called OMAP 4440 and should end up being built on the 45nm manufacturing process technology.
Full HD 2D multimedia playback (1,080p) will be supported, as will 1,080p stereoscopic 3D and 12 megapixel stereo cameras.
The graphics part of the media processor will be based on the PowerVR 540, which should be three or four times better than PowerVR 530.
For the sake of comparison, the TI 4430 can only handle 720p Stereoscopic 3D and only 5 megapixel 3D cameras.
No doubt the OMAP 4440 will show up in at least a few media tablet PCs, possibly running Android 3.0 if the stars and planets align correctly.
Either way, that TI has such plans makes it quite possible that the Tegra 2 will get a successor around the same time.
All that remains is to see if any sort of design win showdown takes place and, if so, how the emerging tablet market progresses after that.