Texas Instruments announce 1 Ghz ARM SoC processors

Qualcomm was first at the 1 Ghz mark with its Snapdragon processor, and Apple followed much later with its A4, but now Texas Instruments has joined the party with its own Cortex A8 powered 1 Ghz chipset.

Built on 45 nm, the AM3703 and Open GL graphics-accelerated AM3715 are descendants of TI’s OMAP35x line, and is available in 600, 800 and 1000 Mhz versions.

Aimed at industrial automation, automotive navigation, smart displays, and building automation, TI plans to target smartphones with its dual core Cortex A9 chipset later this year.

"These are the first broadly available 1GHz Cortex-A8 processors, open to business for all customers," said Russell Crane, Sitara marketing manager in a recent press briefing.

With the help of the faster 1GHz clock rate, among other enhancements, the DSP will enable more advanced video processing than available with the OMAP3530, said Crane. The initial AM3715 and AM3703 will support "some version of D1 resolution," he added.

The AM3715 and AM3703 processors are available now for sampling, and are priced at $26 for the AM3715 and $22.50 for the AM3703 in 1,000 unit quantities (1ku), says TI. The TMDXEVM3715 evaluation module (EVM) is available for Linux now for $1,495, and a Windows CE with Windows Embedded Compact 7 support  should be available in the third quarter.

Read much more at WindowsforDevices here.