14 DAY TRIAL // ZiiLabs, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative Technology, has just unveiled a new Android 4.0 optimized media processor that packs together four 1.5GHz ARM Cortex A9 cores with 96 “StemCell Media Processing” cores to form what the company calls it to be a 100-core CPU.
According to ZiiLabs, the end result is a processor that can deliver double the performance of the previous ZMS-20 chip, while consuming half the power of its predecessor.
The ZMS-40’s biggest asset however is its array of 96 fully-programmable StemCell Media Processing cores that should be able to deliver 58 GFlops of compute power and support the OpenCL 1.1 framework.
This array of StemCell cores is also used by ZiiLabs for image processing, hardware video acceleration, video decoding, advanced audio processing and other tasks.
OpenGL ES 2.0 is also supported, together with various video codecs (ZiiLabs lists HEVC, H.264, VC1 and WebM), while the maximum supported display resolution is set at 2560x1600.
ZiiLabs’ ZMS-40 media processor can access a maximum of 2GB of system memory via a 64-bit wide memory bus and also includes support for HDMI 1.4a which enables 3D video playback on an external monitor (1920x1080 @ 120 Hz).
"The ZMS-40 continues our strategy to deliver ground breaking processors, hardware platforms and software solutions that enable our partners to differentiate and win market share in the Android tablet space," said Hock Leow, President of ZiiLABS.
"Our customers demand innovation and ready-for-market solutions and with ZMS-40, JAGUAR and the latest Android software we continue to deliver phenomenal performance, features and value," concluded the company’s rep.
For now, ZiiLabs has announced its plans to use the ZMS-40 media processor in an Android 4.0 tablet that will be “aimed squarely at the Chinese market” and that is said to feature an ultra-slim and ultralight design.
Those of you attending this year’s CES will also have the chance of taking a look at such a tablet as during the fair, ZiiLabs plans to showcase a few Android 4.0 (ICS) tablets and associated design-kits based on the ZMS-40 CPU.
