14 DAY TRIAL // Texas Instruments has just announced its next-generation OMAP 4 platform processor that brings QXGA display resolution, HD UIs and twice the standard level of web browsing performance, which is intended to outperform NVIDIA's Kal-El quad-core processor.
Even though rumors suggest that Google may put an end to the collaboration with NVIDIA once Android Ice Cream Sandwich hits the market, there's no telling what company the search giant will choose.
However, there are only two names that successfully rival NVIDIA and that's Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.
The latest hearsay point to the fact that Google wants only the best there is on the market at any given time, and that the newly announced OMAP4470 is perfect for its next Android version.
The CPU embeds two cores with clock speeds up to 1.8 GHz, and offers an 80% increase in web browsing performance, increased memory bandwidth, as well as a 2.5x boost in graphics functionality via the POWERVR SGX544 core from Imagination Technologies.
Furthermore, the new processor is fully compatible with gaming applications running on operating systems such as Android, Linux and the next version of Microsoft Windows.
TI OMAP4470 supports resolution up to QXGA (2048×1536) and features support for up to three HD screens and up to 2x more layered imaging and video composition than other solutions.
According to the manufacturer, this feature is enabled by the combination of a hardware composition engine with a dedicated 2D graphics core and dual-channel LPDDR2 memory.
The latter enables up to 7.5 Gbps of throughput to composite the graphics and/or video data output, which frees the GPU to perform other tasks such as gaming or widget creation.
Based on the 45nm technology, the OMAP4470 processor is expected to sample in the second half of 2011, with devices expected to hit the market in first half 2012.
