The Samsung 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird Application processor did quite the news rounds as most of the smartphones from the much coveted Galaxy Series operated on it. Samsung has now unraveled its latest 1GHz ARM Cortex A9-based dual-core application processor, which has been nicknamed Orion. Created to suit the needs of high-performance, low-power mobile applications for smartphones, tablets and notebooks, this processor will give Device OEM developers a robust dual processor chip platform to work on.
It has been crafted with Samsung’s 45 nanometer low-power process technology. The processor is loaded with two 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 cores, each equipped with a 32KB instruction cache and a 32KB data cache. Additionally it features a 1MB L2 cache, which will augment the CPU’s processing power, as well as offer fast context switching to be used in multi-tasking environment. The bus architecture and memory interface of the processor renders support to data intensive multimedia applications like high speed 3D action games and complete HD video playback.
“Consumers are demanding the full web experience without compromise while on the go,” stated Dojun Rhee, vice president of Marketing, System LSI Division, Samsung Electronics. “Given this trend, mobile device designers need an application processor platform that delivers 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.”
The Orion is packed with a myriad of multimedia features employed by hardware accelerators like video encoder/decoder which supports 30fps video playback and recording at 1080P full HD resolution. With an advanced GPU, the processor can deliver 5 times better 3D graphics performance than what was seen in Samsung’s previous processor generation. In order to offer system BOM cost reduction and design flexibility, Orion blends in a set of interfaces usually used in phones to create several peripheral functionalities. The processor offers different types of storage like NAND flash, moviNAND, SSD or HDD providing both SATA, and eMMC interfaces.
Moreover users can select best suited memory options such as low power LPDDR2 or DDR3 that is often used for high performance. A GPS receiver baseband processor is integrated in Orion to effortlessly render location based services or LBS support. It is loaded with onboard native triple display controller architecture which augments multi-tasking operations used in a multiple display environment. A phone running the Orion processor will concurrently support two on-device display screens along with a third external display like a monitor or a TV, through an on-chip HDMI 1.3a interface.
With memory stacking, the processor can also support package-on-package (POP) to minimize footprint. A copy of the Orion available as a standalone package along with a 0.8mm ball pitch can also be procured. The 1GHz ARM Cortex A9-based dual-core application processor will be available to select consumers in Q4, 2010, and will hit mass production by first half of 2011. The Samsung Orion will be exhibited at the seventh yearly Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum in Taiwan at the Westin Taipei Hotel.