Samsung announce 1GHz ARM CORTEX-A8 Hummingbird CPU
Samsung and Intrinsity jointly announced the fastest ARM Cortex-A8 processor architecture. Using 45 nm low-power, low-leakage process technology the processor codenamed Hummingbird, delivers the impressive 2000DMIPS at 1GHz.
Not only is the new processor amazingly powerful (almost twice as fast as the iPhone 3GS unit), but it is extremely energy efficient too. The Hummingbird can run at a high speed even at the minimum supply voltage of 1.0V, which makes it really suitable for use in mobile devices.
If the previous 600MHz Cortex-A8 could do 720p videos on the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD, we may not stretching it by far by expecting 1080p full HD recording on a mobile phone powered by the new Hummingbird.
The companies standing behind the ARM Cortex family development expect it to account for about half of the total market for mobile application processors by 2013. Quite a bold forecast but it might just as well come true, with ARM already having more than a dozen Cortex-A processor family licensees.
Though all this is nothing but exciting, we"d be more delighted when we see an actual working handset based on the new Hummingbird. The 1GHz Snapdragon mobile processor is already being implemented and you can already buy the Toshiba TG01 full touch PocketPC utilizing just that under its extra slim waistline. We guess by the time the Hummingbird gets to the market in one form or the other, it would have quite some competition to tackle.
