Texas Instruments To Launch Feature-Rich, ARM-Based Mobile OMAP 5 Processors

According to this news item, these chip samples are going to be available by the second half of this year.These ARM based processors are directed at the mobile space and possibly brings the mobile computing closer to reality. The OMAP 5 packs a lot of processing power and is a significant improvement over the OMAP4.The new chip will have dual ARM Cortex A15 cores, running at 2 GHz. These are helped along by dual Cortex M4 cores that's handle the real-time load, such as video processing.

The 28 nm fab process helps the chip, even with four cores running, manage with 60% of power consumption of the OMAP4. Performance wise the OMAP 5 will deliver 3x processing power an 5x graphics processing compared to the earlier generation.

The chip will thus be able to easily support stereoscopic (3D) applications that include video conferencing using some additional graphics power. Four HD displays or four cameras can simultaneously be supported. Devices using the OMAP 5 will be to offer record and playback 3D video, or convert 2D video to 3D, at 1080p resolution. It will let advanced gesturing applications, touch-less sensory technology, and computational photography applications such as face recognition, object recognition and text recognition, etc. be supported.



Texas Instruments To Launch Feature-Rich, ARM-Based Mobile OMAP 5 Processors

Windows 8 on ARM SoC, Phone 7 updates, tablets

With the Windows 8 MS is going to give you a version for the ARM based processors. That creates an ARM based PC making opportunity. Similarly does it create an opportunity for the MS behemoth to move into the mobile space that they entirely missed! Can elephants dance! may be not but they can run at 40 KMPH when needed, is this an occasion, we would see MS hitting the ground running! I have nagging feeling that it is too little, too late!



CES 2011: Windows 8 on ARM SoC, Phone 7 updates, tablets

Windows 8 on ARM SoC

Windows invariably meant the OS for the x86 processor. that, in turn, largely meant processor chips from Intel. This is picture that started right from the time PC revolution started and continued until now. For a brief time the Windows NT was offered in PowePC , MIPS and Alpha processors. None of the chips achieve any kind of significant numbers and when the next version came out, these supports were not there.

 This definitely looks like the point when the WINTEL stranglehold on the huge majority (remember, AMD too plays!) of PCs might change. Not too soon though, this may take a while.

Faster Forward - Microsoft to ship Windows for ARM processors

Nvidia challenges Intel with PC central processors

A PC and WINTEL were synonymous until now. Not any more. The recent CES at Las Vegas in first week of January brought news that changes that relationship for  ever, I guess. PC meant Intel processors that kept building on the original 8086 architecture. Other than AMD no one else challenged that. NVIDIA was happy to build chips and boards for supporting graphics and video on the huge numbers of PC  being sold. That changes now and NVIDIA has announced a processor that can go inside the PC.

The company is going to build a central processor using ARM architecture. The processors will be integrated on the same chip as NVIDIA's graphic processor and will be aimed at everything from workstations to supercomputers. "We are designing a high-performing ARM CPU core in combination with our massively parallel GPU cores to create a new class of processor," said Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA CEO. This they expect would free the PCs, workstations and servers from the hegemony and inefficiency of the x86 (Intel) architecture.

What makes this really feasible is the announcement from Microsoft that they will be releasing a Windows version (Windows 8!) for the ARM processor.

CES-UPDATE 3-Nvidia challenges Intel with PC central processors | Reuters

ARM amazes Me!

A silicon processor that is not fabricated by the designer company is an amazement in itself. Thar the processor has been around for such a long time and has undergone improvements over time adds to that amazement. Though it could not make dent in the PC space, it is almost omnipresent in the mobile telephone handset segment. There are two interesting evolutions taking place as of now.

The first of these is that the personal computer may be undergoing an evolution in front of our eyes. The tablet form factor seems to be generating a lot of interest and there are a lot of devices on offer or about to come into market. The leader in this space is the iPad of course who seems to have sold more than a million devices, since its introduction a little more than a month ago. This form factor is likely to become the device of choice for people.Will the recent netbook form factor be as popular as it was at the launch of the products?

The other evolution that is happening is that tablets are getting designed by not Intel processors. The highly popular iPad is built around a processor, the A4, that has ARM at its core. There are tablets that use NVIDIA's Tegra processor that has two core ARM and graphics processors to take care of handling 1080p video. So, an interesting speculation is if ARM is going to take over the Tablet space!

While Atom from Intel powered the netbooks predominantly, the netbooks were designed to be mainly for net surfing rather than personal productivity. Thus the underpowered Atom was a good fit. But, now it is threatened with tablets. Tablets are designed to be able to personal productivity applications as well. That is a genuine threat to netbooks and Intel has already come out with a dual core Atom which can overcome the low horse power of the original Atom chip.

Let's wait and watch if ARM is going to take over the tablet space after conquering the mobile kingdom!

Android is Moving into Sub-laptop Space

When Android came out on a cell phone, it was quite a sensation. Within a couple of years now, it seems to be moving into these small formfactor laptops. Gartner reported from Computex 2009 in Taiwan that Android is set to move into this space certainly. Computex showed quite a few exaples of these products that used Android.

This space actually includes couple of types of products. The netbooks, 10 inch display with Atom on the inside kind of products that are primarily aimed at being a net aid. These products are actually PCs with scaled down performance, being the same Wintel combination. In fact lot of people are seeing these as truly affordable laptops.

The other product category in the same display format are called smartbooks as these use the processors used in smartphones and giving you similar net access on the small notebook format.Thees are predominantly ARM processor based.

Examples on both kind of platforms were seen on the show floor, coupled with the fact that Microsft is not going to port windows 7 onto ARM, there's enough incentive for Goole to fill that vacuum. Additionally ports to MIPs also were shown. Acer is even doing a x86 port of Android. So, what's going to stop Android! Let's watch and see, this is going to be interesting.