14 DAY TRIAL // Today, South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung Electronics has announced the launch of a new processor for mobile phones, a 1GHz ARM CORTEX A9-based dual-core application processor, codenamed Orion.
According to the company, the new solution was designed to offer support for high-performance, low-power mobile applications such as tablets, netbooks and smartphones.
At the same time, the leading handset vendor announced that the new chip is set to be demonstrated at the seventh annual Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum held in Taiwan at the Westin Taipei Hotel.
The new application processor has been created based on Samsung's 45 nanometer low-power process technology.
The silicon packs a pair of 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 cores, each featuring 32KB data cache and a 32KB instruction cache, while also including a 1MB L2 cache for optimized CPU processing performance.
Moreover, the solution has been designed so as to support data intensive multimedia applications such as full HD video playback and high speed 3D action games.
“Samsung's new application processor incorporates a rich portfolio of advanced multimedia features implemented by hardware accelerators, such as video encoder/decoder that supports 30fps video playback and recording at 1080P full HD resolution,” the company announced.
The processor comes with an enhanced graphics processing unit (GPU), and should be able to deliver up to 5 times the 3D graphics performance previous Samsung processors did.
The chip also comes with an onboard native triple display controller architecture, the company continues: “A mobile device using the Orion processor can simultaneously support two on-device display screens, while driving a third external display such as a TV or a monitor, via an on-chip HDMI 1.3a interface.”
The Samsung Orion solution was designed to support package-on-package (POP) with “memory stacking to reduce the footprint,” the company announced, adding that a version of the chip in a standalone package with a 0.8mm ball pitch was made available as well.
The new dual-core application processor from Samsung is expected to be released to select customers in the fourth quarter of the ongoing year, while mass production should kick off for the first half of 2011.
“Consumers are demanding the full web experience without compromise while on the go,” said Dojun Rhee, vice president of Marketing, System LSI Division, Samsung Electronics.
"Given this trend, mobile device designers need an application processor platform that delivers superb multimedia performance, fast CPU processing speed, and abundant memory bandwidth. Samsung's newest dual core application processor chip is designed specifically to fulfill such stringent performance requirements while maintaining long battery life.”