Chip designer ARM Holdings Plc on
Tuesday unveiled a new processor
blueprint with improved computing
performance and beefed-up graphics
aimed at smartphones and tablets to be
launched next year.
ARM's new Cortex-A72 processor design
and related technology improvements
come as the smartphone industry
struggles with cooling demand after
years of explosive growth sparked by
Apple Inc's iPhone in 2007.
Investors are concerned about lower
royalty rates for ARM as growth in the
smartphone market shifts to China,
where consumers typically buy devices
priced at $200 or less, compared with
more than $600 in the United States.
Rather than making its own chips, ARM
licenses its processor technology to othe
semiconductor companies, including
Qualcomm Inc and Samsung Electronics
Co Ltd, as well as to Apple. It receives
royalties based on the selling prices of
chips shipped by its partners.
ARM's new processor has 3.5 times the
performance of comparable chips from
2014, executives said at an event in San
Francisco.
The chip design will also deliver a 75
percent reduction in energy use, helping
reduce battery drain on smartphones,
they claimed.
Some of the improvements will be due to
advances in manufacturing technology
contract manufacturers like Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, th
Cambridge, U.K.-based company said.
Nandan Nayampally, ARM's vice
president of marketing, said with the
Cortex-A72's increased computing
horsepower, smartphones and tablets
will be able to handle complex computin
like voice analysis without having to
connect to the Internet.
Many compute-heavy tasks on
smartphones today are handled remotely
in data centers owned by Internet
heavyweights like Amazon Inc, Google
Inc and Facebook Inc instead of by the
smartphone's processor, with results
instantly sent to the device.
"There's more than enough performance
on tap (for) increasing complexity on the
local device," Nayampally said, adding
that devices made with the new chip
technology would likely ship in early
2016.
Ten companies have licensed the new
technology, including China's Rockchip
and Taiwan's MediaTek Inc, ARM said.
ARM shares were up 0.6 percent to
$47.64 in Nasdaq trading.
ARM Unveils Cortex-A72 Processor Design for Smartphones, Tablets in 2016 | NDTV Gadgets
