Chip-designer ARM certainly has lofty aspirations. Having taken the wraps off its next generation ‘Eagle' processor last week and prepared to go toe-to-toe with Google TV following the announcement of its set-top box platform, the company is now getting ready to battle Intel and AMD. Together with partner NuSmart, the British company has unveiled a new version of its Cortex A9 MPCore SoC destined to appear in tablets and ultrathin laptops.
Movin' on up
The dual-core A9 - which is starting to find its way into devices in the guise of chips like the Tegra 2 - will essentially be a juiced-up version of the silicon that you'll soon be finding in tablets and smartphones. Called the NuSmart 2816, this new 40nm variant runs at 2GHz and integrates 2D and 3D graphics processing, a memory controller and an I/O controller to provide all of the basic features that you'd expect to find on a modern laptop.
According to NuSmart System Chip Division general manager, Vince Zhou, "the closed computing market is entering a new era after 30 years of unidirectional evolution, driven by SoC technology and the virtual IDM industry model, which have been well developed in the open mobile market resulting in high power efficiency and versatile user experience".
He added that "we believe this solution will bring a totally different user experience to customers and will reshape the mainstream computing market".
Low-power warrior
The key advantages of ARM chips are the remarkably-efficient designs and the fine grain power-management. NuSmart claims that the processor draws under 2W when running at 1.6GHz, meaning that it requires several times less power than the N-series Intel Atom CPUs.
Of course, the traditional sticking-point with ARM-based laptops has been the operating system. The manufacturer is apparently testing Ubuntu and Android, as well as working with Microsoft to develop the best user-experience.
Whether ARM's CPUs have the horsepower to compete with the incumbents - especially as both AMD and Intel prepare to release new low-power architectures - is still unclear, but the company certainly seems determined to succeed. According to the announcement, ultrathin laptops, tablets, netbooks and all-in-ones with the new processor will be on display at CES 2011 in early January.
