ARM has announced its intention to create a new range of superfast ARM processors based on its Cortex-A9 platform, this time optimized for speed rather than battery life.
The 2 Ghz processors would be more suited for smartbooks or netbooks, using up to 4 times the power of a smartphone targeted processor like the Cortex-A9 running at 800 Mhz (1.9W vs 0.5W). The 40 nm chips will still likely provide double the battery life than an Atom chip from Intel for example. The smaller chips will also be considerably cheaper to produce, providing a real challenge for Intel at the low end.
An 800 Mhz version of the chip, optimized for battery life, will be made available around the same time.
With our smartphones becoming more MID-like by the second, and full Flash coming to smartphones soon will it only be a question of time before we demand this kind of power even in our handheld devices? Let us know in the comments.
Read the full article at the Gaurdian here.