All Articles Tagged arm cortex a9

During ARM’s Q3 financial results announced today, 9to5Mac noticed this little gem:

including a license for ARM’s 2GHz implementation of a dual core Cortex-A9 processor.

We’ve heard about the Cortex A9 before. Purportedly, is 5x faster than an intel Atom, yet uses the same amount of power in a 60% smaller package.

Could this be for next year’s iPhone? For a mythical (maybe even second generation) iTablet? We don’t know, but 9to5mac speculates:

Apple is rumored to be an ARM licensee and that that they’ve reportedly split the PA Semi group up into two parts. One working on Smartphone chips the other working on tablet processors. It is now generally accepted that the Apple tablet will run a ARM Cortex processor. It will likely want a bit more horsepower than the ARM Cortex A8-class Samsung chip inside the iPhone 3GS.

Whether or not it’s Apple, the PA Semi group is working on something, even if it won’t be until next year that we get to see it. Anyone else care to speculate?

CNET has an interesting post up detailing what we can expect in the next generation ARM processor. Just yesterday we took a look at the iPhone 3G’s ARM 11 vs. the new iPhone 3G S’ Cortex ARM8 and the difference was impressive — most impressive. Well, next year is promising a dual-core ARM Cortex A9…!

Icebike sent this in, wondering out loud: “Is it too soon to start speculating on 2010?” And the simple answer is “no, no it’s not!” It’s longstanding practice here at TiPb to wait a polite 1.372 seconds after a new iPhone model is introduced, and then begin with “So, next year–”

That spirit in mind, TiPb can’t help but wonder what this, combined with multi-core PowerVR GPU’s, wrapped up into custom system-on-chips by Papermaster, the PA Semi team, and all those new GPU gurus toiling away in Steve’s basement, means for a 2010 iPhone? (No, I won’t call it an iPhone HD — yet!)

At the very least, I think DC comics is going to have to invent us a faster Flash!