Computing on the move has taken off big time. No longer bound by the shackles of a deskbound screen, we are now working on smartphones, playing on tablets and surfing on netbooks. We need such devices to be both powerful and low on power draw. The latest to answer such needs is Samsung, announcing its most recent foray into the world of mobile chip manufacture – Orion. The 1GHz ARM-based Dual Core chip supports various storage and memory configurations, is HD and 3D ready and has GPS included.
The 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 Dual Core application processor has been designed using Samsung's 45 nanometer low-power process technology and sees each of the 1GHz cores coming with a 32KB data cache and a 32KB instruction cache. A 1MB L2 cache is said to provide fast context switching for a multi-tasking environment and optimum CPU processing performance. The company has also included both SATA and eMMC interfaces to cater for all sorts of different storage additions, from the humble HDD to SSD to NAND flash and so on.
An enhanced graphics processor offers "five times the 3D graphics performance over the previous processor generation from Samsung" and 30 frames per second full 1080p high definition video playback – with HDMI-out capabilities. It's also compatible with various memory modules, such as LPDDR2 and DDR3, and has a GPS receiver embedded on the chip to cater for local-based services.
Announcing Samsung's Orion chip, the company's Dojun Rhee said that it offered "superb multimedia performance, fast CPU processing speed, and abundant memory bandwidth. Samsung's newest dual core application processor chip is designed specifically to fulfill such stringent performance requirements while maintaining long battery life."
Samsung will begin mass production in the first half of 2011.