When it comes to the CPUs in mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, the biggest change we're about to see is the same change that happened to PCs a few years ago: the move to multi-core chips.
Over the past couple of years, we've seen mobile chips gain in speed dramatically. Last year we saw the entrance of new chips running at 1 GHz or so from almost all the major mobile chip makers, including Apple, Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Samsung's Hummingbird, and TI's OMAP 4. These chips run the high-end smart phones today: almost every manufacturer from Apple to HTC to Motorola has a model with a 1 GHz processor - and more are coming. In the year to come, we'll see more of this - and even some increases in clock speed from multiple vendors.
But just as in the PC industry, the mobile chip makers are facing the problems increased frequency brings - more heat, and thus more power consumption. PC chips pretty much ran into their frequency limits several years ago - prompting a move to dual-core and in some cases, multi-core chips. The same thing is happening in the mobile world. In fact, since power consumption generally increases as a square of the frequency, the mobile chip makers are all pretty convinced that a move to dual-core chips could actually increase battery life if each core can run most of the time at a lower clock speed.
Nvidia has used this transition as a way to get a lot of attention and a lot of design wins with its dual-core Tegra 2 chip. This chip is being used in the Motorola Xoom tablet, and the combination has been the reference design for Google's Android 3.0 operating system, known as Honeycomb. Since the OS is designed to be running multiple applications simultaneously, multi-core chips make a lot of sense. And since Tegra 2 will be the first supported chip, it is being used in the bulk of the first generation of Honeycomb Tablets, including the Xoom, LG G-Slate, and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. These three were on display at Mobile World Congress, and the chip is also in others that seem to be coming not far behind, such as those from Toshiba. And it's already in the 7-inch Dell Streak, although that runs an earlier version of Android.
But other dual-core tablets are not far behind. HP's TouchPad, based on its webOS, will use a 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor; while Acer plans to use a 1 GHz Snapdragon in its upcoming Iconia Smart, based on Android. Research in Motion's BlackBerry Playbook, running its QNX-based tablet OS, uses a 1GHz dual -core Texas Instruments OMAP 4 processor. And while Apple hasn't announced its plans, it's likely the next version of the iPad will have a new chip as well.
Dual-core chips are coming to phones as well, with such phones as the Motorola Atrix and LG Optimus 2X based on the Tegra 2; and the Samsung Galaxy S II based on an upcoming Samsung processor expected soon.
But the big news in recent weeks - and at the Mobile World Congress show in particular - was the announcement and positioning of a variety of chips with 3 or 4 cores, with most of the major chip vendors showing their entrants. If two cores are good, would three or four be better? That's a question we really can't answer until we see the final chips, and that may take a while. Although the chips have been announced, none are shipping, and we don't expect to see them in new devices for months, or, in most cases, until next year. In part, that's because the chip vendors need time for their products to be included in phone and tablet designs. But the differences are certainly interesting.
Most mobile chips are based on cores that are compatible with the ARM architecture, though they often have varying graphics cores. After the jump, check out a wrapup of some of the recent announcements and their varying points of view.
Chip Announcements
Back in September, Marvell was the first of the ARM vendors to announce a chip with more than two cores with its Armada 628, designed to have three ARM compliant cores running up to 1.5 GHz. The company says it can provide more than10 hours of full 1080p HD video or 140 hours of music on a single charge. Marvell followed this a couple of months later with the Armada XP, designed to have up to four 1.6 GHz ARM compliant cores, up to 2MB of Level 2 cache; and a 64-bit memory interface, but aimed mostly at servers and similar markets. Marvell's processors are used in a lot of devices, including many hard drives, but are perhaps best known for being used in RIM BlackBerry devices.
Freescale was next, announcing its i.MX53 family with up to four cores running up to 1.2 GHz, and graphics from AMD (which have since been acquired by Qualcomm). The company says the chip supports 1080p video with up to 33 million triangles per second. Single, dual and quad-core versions should be available in summer 2012, though samples are due in the second quarter of this year.
Freescale says that with dual core and quad core versions running Windows 8 and Honeycomb, ARM chips could be a potential laptop replacement (although Microsoft's Windows announcement only mentioned Nvidia, Qualcomm, and TI). But Freescale's Rajeev Kumar says the company's focus is power consumption, trying to get 1080p video playback using less than 200 milliwatts of power. He said the company is more about providing a total solution, includes sensors, codecs, and power management. Kumar said the company wants to produce reference designs -- not a "bag of chips."
Qualcomm, which normally sells platforms that integrate wireless communications as well as applications processors, announced a new line of chips at the showing, including its next-generation line of Snapdragon processors, including the quad-core APQ8064 running at up to 2.5GHz and using the company's Adreno 320 graphics with up to four 3D cores. The company says its new core, known as Krait, will deliver 150 percent higher overall performance, as well as 65 percent lower power than "currently available ARM-based CPU cores." If true, that should put it more in competition with the ARM A15 cores than the current A9 ones.
At a press conference, Qualcomm's Steve Mollenkoff said "Integration wins in mobile" and talked about how designing its own cores helps the company speed products to market as well as ensuring better integration with communications. He said the company was first with a 1 GHz processor, and its chips account for the majority of the Android devices out today. The company also really pushed "augmented reality" as a major new feature the new chips would release. It's an interesting idea; but the software seems very early. These processors will also be manufactured on a more advanced 28nm process, but aren't expected to be available until sometime next year. The company also showed a dual-core chip known as the APQ8060 with Adreno 220 graphics that will power the HP TouchPad, due in a few months.
But the big surprise came from Nvidia. On the first couple of days of the show, it was content to show off its dual-core Tegra 2. But on Wednesday, it unveiled its quad-core chip, code-named Kal-El (though many people seem to be thinking of it as Tegra 3). What makes this stand out is that rather than just talking about the chip, Nvidia actually showed the chip running in its booth, saying it would be out in tablets by August and in smartphones by the end of the year.
Nvidia says the new chip has twice the CPU cores and 12 graphics engines, compared to 8 in the existing Tegra 2. It will support up to 2560-by-600 display, and 1440 video; more importantly, it will support 1080p high-bit rate video - four times the 720p video supported on the Tegra 2. The company wouldn't officially specify the CPU core in the chip, although it's highly likely to be the Cortex-A9 since that's in the Tegra 2 and the A15 isn't ready yet. It says the new chip can provide up "up to 5X" the performance of Tegra 2, although as with all performance numbers here, I'd take that with a grain of salt.
Specifically, Nvidia says doubling the number of cores should nearly double CPU performance in some cases, and the new graphics can triple graphics performance, It showed a game called Great Battles running at 30 frames per second on Kal-El as opposed to 5 fps to 10 fps on Tegra 2. Nvidia also showed some demos of applications that it said ran faster on the new chip than on an older Core 2 Duo used in laptops. This could be even more important when we see the next version of Windows running on ARM.
Nvidia plans to follow Kal-El with chips named Wayne in 2012, Logan in 2013, and Stark in 2014, which the company says could provide 75 times the performance of Tegra 2. Based on the code names, someone there likes comic books. This is different from the project Denver chip the company announced at CES, which is more aimed at servers.
But what really stands out is that rather than waiting for 28nm for quad-core, like most of its competitors, Nvidia is moving now with a 40nm part, in part because they say the CPU portion doesn't really add that much to die size. Again, it should make the company first to market.
While many of the chip makers were pushing quad-core, Texas Instruments is taking a different approach with its OMAP 5 processor, due out in the second half of 2012, instead of focusing on the cores. This should be the first chip to use ARM Cortex-A15 core, which has a number of extra features such as hardware virtualization and support for up to 8GB of RAM (as compared with a maximum of 2 GB on the Cortex A9). TI's Mark Granger said this should "transform mobile devices" by making them more like PCs.
These new chips should run at up to 2 GHz, and the new cores should be 50 percent more efficient per cycle, TI says, making it perfect for docking devices.
TI talked about several new markets for the chip, focusing on how the OMAP 5 will support "natural UI" with things like gesture recognition, body motion tracking, and vision processing, as well as computational photography - through a relationship with Pelican Imaging and an internal image signal processor.
The chip will include 12 processors in total, including a DSP, image accelerator, a multi-core PowerVR SGX 544 GPU, and two Cortex-M4 cores for media/control processing, such as running the sensors. It will be produced on a 28nm process (compared with the 45 nm process used in the OMAP 4). It should be 30 percent more power efficient in total, and 60 percent more efficient if you want the same experience.
TI says its dual A15 cores should be more efficient than four A9s (talking about how it offers 2 MB of Level 2 cache; support for dual-channel memory; and better thermals. It says it offer more fine-grain controls about tuning the cores, etc. And Granger said, while two cores provide more performance per power than one, and three cores add some as well, after that, it doesn't really improve. Other manufacturers would dispute that. Of course, we won't really know until we see final devices.
ST-Ericsson as well has now announced an A15-based processor as the high end in a new line known as NovaThor. Nova is the name of the application processors, and Thor is the name of the modem and communications side of the platform. The first of these processors - the Nova A9500 and A9540 -- are using ARM's Cortex-A9 core and its Mali graphics (produced at 45nm and 32nm respectively).
But the big news is the high-end daul-core version called the Nova A9600 with two Cortex-A15 cores, and the first implementation of Imagination's PowerVR 6 series graphics, known as Rogue. The company says this should be able to get up to 210 gigaflops of performance. This will be manufactured on a 28nm process, and also should be sampling late this year, but not in devices until the second half of 2012.
Among the other well-known ARM application processors, Samsung Semiconductor focused on dual-core processors, renaming its line as "Exynos" (it was previously called Orion). The high-end chip, now called the Exynos 4210, includes two Cortex-A9 cores at up to 1 GHz and the company says it has five times the 3D graphics performance of its previous processors. This chip will be used in Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S II phones, and processes features such as recording and playing 1080p video.
Broadcom, which is better known for its communications products than its applications processors also made a big push into the dual-core market by announcing a 1.1 GHz dual core processor, known as Meryln, which is shipping now. This chip is based on the company's "Neon" core (which is in turn based on ARM Cortex-A9) as well as the company's Video Core IV graphics. Manufactured on a 40nm process, this can run in things such as high speed access points, but it also includes things like an HSPA+ modem, so it could run in phones as well.
Broadcom Vice President Martyn Humphries said the company was basically trying to move towards a "single chip solution." He noted that all the device makers want Android and Linux support, and features such as Bluetooth and Wireless LAN (which Broadcom makes on a popular combination chip). The company is partnering with well-known contract manufacturer Compal to pre-integrate the software drives and the entire stack. Having fewer chips means it uses less power; and having it all integrated means developers can get to market faster, he said. The company thinks in terms of applications per milliwatt and power efficiency, he said, and noted that Broadcom aims to be a "one stop shop" for tablet designers.
Conclusions
What's interesting to me is how much diversity we're seeing in mobile chips -- even just counting those that use the ARM architecture. This year's high-end tablets and smartphones are clearly moving to dual-core and there will clearly be a number of quad-core competitors next year. It also will be interesting to see the impact of new cores like the Cortex-A15 and Qualcomm's Krait. Many of the companies are taking different paths with graphics, and are integrating different components either into the applications processor or the chipset that surrounds it.
The result should be a wide variety of choices for device makers, likely with differences in speed, communications performance, and real battery life. The result may be that even within devices that have the same-sized screen and run the same operating system, there could still be a wide range of difference in performance. It should make 2012's devices quite interesting.
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