Tag Archives: cortex-a15

NVIDIA Tegra Note: the Tegra 4-powered, stylus-endowed tablets arrive next month starting at $199

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NVIDIA unveils Tegra Note a Tegra 4powered, stylusready tablet platform for October availability

As a follow to NVIDIA's Tegra 3 reference design for tablets, the company is now unveiling a more ambitious platform known as Tegra Note that leverages the Tegra 4, supports stylus input and provides new multimedia features. Like Project Kai, tablets based on the Tegra Note platform carry a suggested retail price of $199, but pricing is ultimately up to NVIDIA's manufacturing partners and their various hardware configurations.

If this all sounds a bit familiar to you, it should. We first saw signs of NVIDIA's new tablet platform when it appeared as the Tegra Tab at the FCC, and then again in subsequent leaks. Manufacturers can easily apply their name to the reference enclosure, which houses front-facing speakers, a 7-inch, 1,280 x 800 IPS display and a VGA webcam. Naturally, you're also getting the Tegra 4 SoC, which includes a quad-core Cortex-A15 CPU, a 72-core GeForce GPU and advanced imaging features under the Chimera architecture. Other specs will depend on manufacturers, which could include a 5-megapixel rear camera, a microSD slot, a micro-HDMI port and a built-in stylus that offers both chisel and brush tips.

Along with the hardware reference design, NVIDIA is also including Camera Awesome from SmugMug and TegraZone in the Tegra Note platform (along with stylus-enabled apps on appropriate models), and it's even managing the Android system updates. You can expect the first of these Tegra Note tablets to hit shelves in October from the likes of EVGA, PNY and ZOTAC, along with a full line of accessories that include covers and interchangeable stylus tips.

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Source: NVIDIA

MediaTek’s MT8135 SoC does dual-core big.LITTLE MP, packs PowerVR Series6 GPU

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MediaTek's MT8135 SoC does bigLITTLE with dual CortexA15 and dual CortexA7

It'll be a while before MediaTek's true octa-core SoC makes its glorious arrival, but for the time being, the company's unveiling something just as interesting -- and perhaps more practical. The new MT8135 announced today is a "quad-core" SoC aimed at "the middle- to high-end tier of the tablet OEM market." We quote "quad-core," because it actually consists of two clusters: dual Cortex-A15 cores and dual Cortex-A7 cores. But the good news is that unlike the original big.LITTLE configuration where only one cluster can operate at any given time (depending on how heavy the workload is), MediaTek's confirmed that it has implemented big.LITTLE MP ("MP" as in heterogeneous multi-processing) in the MT8135, meaning both the A15 and the A7 clusters can operate simultaneously.

Another highlight of this MT8135 is that it'll be one of the first SoCs -- alongside LG's H13 (which we've seen first-hand), Renesas' APE6 and Renesas' R-Car H2 -- to come with Imagination Technologies' almighty PowerVR Series6 GPU. Specifically, this is the PowerVR G6200 which, as part of the MT8135, can apparently deliver "up to four times more ALU (arithmetic logic unit) horsepower" than the Series5XT GPU on the cheaper, quad-A7 MT8125. And unsurprisingly, the MT8135 gets the same Miracast wireless video goodie given to the MT8125; though it's also worth noting that the latter only supports LPDDR2 RAM instead of the more powerful LPDDR3.

Sadly, there's no further information regarding availability, but you can kill some time by checking out more technical details in the video (with benchmarks) and press releases after the break.

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Source: Imagination Technologies

New Exynos 5 Octa: 20 percent more CPU power, over twice the 3D graphics oomph

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New Exynos 5 Octa: 20 percent more CPU power, over twice the 3D graphics oomph

Samsung couldn't help itself last week when it teased a new Exynos 5 Octa system on a chip, and now it's dishing out the full details. The fresh 5420 variant of the SoC is based on Mali-T628 MP6 silicon, packs a quartet of ARM Cortex-A15 cores running at 1.8GHz and four 1.3GHz Cortex-A7s in an ARM big.LITTLE configuration. Seoul claims that the package packs 20 percent more CPU processing punch, and has two times greater 3D graphics power than its predecessor. Dual-channel LPDDR3 at 933MHz gives the processor a screaming memory bandwidth of 14.9 GBps, which lends it full HD WiFi display support. Baked inside is an image compression solution that makes for energy efficient multimedia loading, and squeezes out more hours of use with high-res displays. There's no word on which devices might use the new SoCs, but the chips are already being sampled by Samsung's customers, and mass-production is slated for August.

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Samsung puts Exynos 5 Octa into production: guess who’s the first customer

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Samsung puts Exynos 5 Octa in mass production, no prizes for guessing where it shows up

That Galaxy S 4 isn't going to compute tasks through sheer force of will, you know. Just a day after Samsung unveiled the smartphone as its inaugural Exynos 5 Octa device, the company has confirmed that the not-really-eight-core ARM processor should be in mass production during the second quarter of the year, or between April and June. There aren't many more details to share beyond what the company mentioned at CES, but that doesn't diminish what could be a best-of-all-worlds processor: the automatic switching between four Cortex-A15 and four Cortex-A7 cores should give it a performance edge over many of its peers while reducing power consumption by up to 70 percent. We also know that the Octa's graphics performance has largely caught up to peers versus earlier Exynos 4 designs, as Imagination Technologies has confirmed that its PowerVR SGX544MP is providing enough muscle to double 3D performance over the creaky Mali-400 in the Exynos 4 Quad. About the only mystery left is whether or not many companies beyond Samsung will get a chance at some Exynos 5 Octa silicon, although there's one or two prospects.

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Source: Samsung, Imagination Technologies

Huawei’s Richard Yu confirms 8-core chip for 2H 2013, teases super slim P series phone for MWC

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Huawei's Richard Yu confirms 8core chip for 2H 2013, teases super slim P series phone for MWC

We never thought our day could get any better after Huawei's Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu became available again for our CES stage interview (there was originally a "last minute urgent conflict"), but our man was also kind enough to share a couple more scoops with us. First of all, Huawei will be joining Samsung at the octa-core Cortex-A15 party in the second half of this year, and given what Yu's told us earlier this week, our guess is that this will either be the HiSilicon K3V3 or a sister chipset, again manufactured by TSMC.

The second scoop of the day was delivered fresh off the stage after the interview. Yu told us exclusively that at MWC next month, Huawei will be unveiling a super slim follow-up to the current P series Android phones. We asked if it'll be even thinner than 6.45mm (the thickness of the Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra announced at CES), and Yu said yes. The exec added that the new phone will have a beautiful metallic body as well. Exciting times, right?

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Via: Engadget Chinese

Huawei’s HiSilicon K3V3 chipset due 2H 2013, to be based on Cortex-A15

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Earlier today our brethren over at Engadget Chinese got to hang out with Huawei Device chairman Richard Yu, who was kind enough to inform us that his company will release a HiSilicon K3V3 chipset -- the follow-up to the current quad-core K3V2 -- in the second half of this year. What's more, much like NVIDIA's upcoming Tegra 4, the new platform will be based on the more powerful Cortex-A15 ARM architecture instead of Cortex-A9. Yu also hinted that the K3V3 will be featured in the successors to the Ascend D2 and the Ascend Mate, but our guess is that we won't be seeing those at MWC next month. We shall tickle the man live on stage for more answers this Thursday.

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Benchmarks show Samsung’s Exynos 5 processor is a beast with Linux

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Benchmarks show Samsung's Exynos 5 processor is a beast with Linux

Linux wizard Michael Larabel has been marking his benches over at Phoronix and in the process he's proved that the Samsung Exynos 5 Dual processor -- currently found in some of our favorite tablets and budget notebooks -- is remarkably nifty with Ubuntu. The chip, which contains two Cortex-A15 cores clocked at 1.7GHz and a Mali-T604 GPU, was stacked up against the A9-based Tegra 3 from NVIDIA plus a few Intel Atoms to represent the x86 side of things. Although the various test rigs couldn't be totally spec-matched in terms of RAM and storage, the scores were focused on pure computational grunt and they gave Samsung's SoC a "surprising" lead. Check out the source link below and you'll see that the majority of the graphs look similar to the one above, with the two weaker Atoms and the aging Tegra 3 being left for dust and only the Core i3, with its much higher wattage, being able to keep that Exynos ego in check -- at least until the eight-core version gets here.

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Source: Phoronix

Samsung to outline 8-core big.LITTLE ARM processor in February

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Samsung to demo 8core bigLITTLE ARM processor in February, usher in heterogeneous mobile chips

Samsung's processor design team has been on a roll with fast chips this year with the Exynos 4 Quad and Exynos 5 Dual. Based on its agenda for the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, that momentum isn't about to stop. A company presentation at the event on February 19th will delve into a new heterogeneous, 8-core processor that relies on ARM's concept of big.LITTLE computing: one half is a quad-core, 1.8GHz ARM Cortex-A15 that will do all the heavy lifting, while the other is a quad 1.2GHz Cortex-A7 that takes over in quieter moments. We don't know much more about the chip beyond the expected 28-nanometer manufacturing process, but it's easy to see a mobile chip that's fast without having to consume much energy in its downtime. Most of the mystery surrounds where Samsung will launch the processor first, rather than what it can do: the big.LITTLE chip would be most valuable in a smartphone, but a potentially large size could relegate it to tablets early on.

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Via: EETimes, GSMArena

Source: ISSCC (PDF)

Google Nexus 10 leaks: Android 4.2, 1.7GHz Exynos 5250, 2,560 x 1,600 resolution (update: video)

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Google Nexus 10 leaks Android 42, Exynos 5250 17GHz, 2,560 x 1,600 resolution

Unless we're looking at one of the most elaborately photographed fakes in the world, this is the Nexus 10. With the Nexus 7 apparently going over quite well at just $199, it was only ever a matter of time before the Nexus family expanded to house a 10-incher. With Google's own Vic Gundotra posting images from a unit that he's using at some exotic locale, it seems that another unit has slipped beneath the camera at BriefMobile. The site has managed to apprehend one of the 10.1-inch slates, and in turn has discovered quite the bounty of information.

Internally, there's (reportedly) a dual-core, Cortex-A15-based 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos 5250, a Mali-T604 GPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage (though no microSD expansion slot), a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera, NFC / WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and a Super AMOLED panel with a drool-worthy 2,560 x 1,600 screen resolution -- yeah, that's well into "Retina" territory at 298.9 pixels per inch. You may recognize that Exynos 5250 from Google's recently released $249 Chromebook, but here, it's being used to push Android 4.2. Those hungry for more can visit the source link, but don't go in hoping to extract an asking price.

Update: Well, if the pictures weren't enough, BriefMobile has just popped a five-second long video of the device, which you can glance at after the break. Don't get too excited, however, as it's merely just someone going from the home screen into Chrome.

Continue reading Google Nexus 10 leaks: Android 4.2, 1.7GHz Exynos 5250, 2,560 x 1,600 resolution (update: video)

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Google Nexus 10 leaks: Android 4.2, 1.7GHz Exynos 5250, 2,560 x 1,600 resolution (update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone 5: the rumor roundup

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iPhone 2012 and iPhone 4S shells compared

We're on the cusp of Apple's sixth iPhone launch, and there's very different expectations than there were last year. The 2011 rumor cycle left more than a few people burned: the later-than-usual October launch and repeated claims of a heavily-remade design led some to a disappointment when the iPhone 4S arrived, even though the final product had a slew of camera, speed and voice command upgrades. This year, the rumors have been grounded well before there was an event date in our hands.

There have been fewer instances of wild rumors. Instead, it's been based more around pragmatism, using either tangible leaks or sources that have a solid track record. Think of the perennial leaks from the Wall Street Journal or the increasingly well-established sourcing from iMore and The Loop. Whether you're conspiracy-minded or not, it's been hard to ignore the sheer number of claims that have tamped down expectations rather than inflated them. It's as though there's a collective fear we'll see a repeat of the 2011 hysteria and deal with fans (or detractors) complaining about missing features that were never promised in the first place.

Where last summer was full of uncertainty, this year there's a mounting consensus as to what we'll see, how we'll get it, and when. Tracking everything that's been mentioned may be a handful, however. With that in mind, we'll dive in and gauge what's likely to emerge from behind Apple's curtain on September 12th -- as well as what we can rule out from the get-go.

Continue reading iPhone 5: the rumor roundup

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iPhone 5: the rumor roundup originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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