Sony Ericsson and ARM announce multi-core mobile CPU

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In a world where smartphones are becoming more and more featured, it left one to wonder how long it would take before the devices went the way of the personal computer and picked up another core or three. Wonder no more, as Sony Ericsson and ARM have announced the world's first multi-core (or, SMP, Symmetric Multi Processing) CPU for mobiles.

This new CPU will be running in a device demonstrated at a private event, with Symbian OS installed, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. This new developments means the future Sony Ericsson phones (and future phones in general) will be able to run more applications at once, whilst reducing the overall power consumption.

Vice President of Wireless Multimedia, Monica De Virigilis, has said that, "In anticipation of the growing demand for faster, feature-rich phones, ST-Ericsson has provided a highly optimized platform that can fully exploit the benefits offered by multi processing." She also noted, "Having multiple processing cores improves real-time performance and OS reactivity, creating much more responsive devices and a better user experience."

For more information, please check out the aforementioned link or await further announcements and details about the phone after the Mobile World Congress.

(5 replies) #1 BGM on 16 Feb 2009 - 20:54

grammatical errors and a nokia logo when the headline reads Sony Ericsson

#1.1 Sazz181 on 16 Feb 2009 - 21:44

Click "Report a problem" instead.

#1.2 BGM on 16 Feb 2009 - 23:38

grammar issue is still there...

"In a world where smartphones are becoming more and more featured, it left one to wonder how long it would take before the devices went the way of the personal computer a picked up another core or three."

#1.3 Sazz181 on 16 Feb 2009 - 23:58

Hmm, strange, I'll ask an editor about it.

#1.4 Dukeicon on 17 Feb 2009 - 00:32

And another....

"This new CPU will be running on a device at a private event, with Symbian OS installed, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona."

Also that sentence doesn't read very well :-/

#1.5 The Tjalian on 17 Feb 2009 - 23:48

Well isn't everyone a Doctor of English in these posts.

¬.¬

(1 reply) #2 +Frazell Thomas on 16 Feb 2009 - 21:17

I'm confused... Haven't Dual Core chips been in cell phones for quite sometime? If I rem. correct my Windows Mobile PDA from 3 years ago (T-Mobile MDA/HTC Wizard) had a TI OMAP 850 @ 200Mhz which was a Dual Core chip?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_OMAP

http://focus.ti.com/general/docs/wtbu/wtbu...;contentId=4679

#2.1 MrA on 17 Feb 2009 - 08:43

Frazell Thomas said,

My HTC Dream's the same, but the second core is the baseband processor. The article is talking about a multi-core, SMP capable application processor, which hasn't been seen so far in a mobile phone.

(1 reply) #3 Richard Hammond on 16 Feb 2009 - 21:34

Since when do Dual core chips allow you run more than 1 app and reduce power consumption, you can multitask on single core cpus and adding a 2nd core doesnt reduce power consumption.

#3.1 MrA on 17 Feb 2009 - 08:46

It does when you have multiple cores running at a slower clock frequency. That way, you get better performance/watt (and possible lower overall power comsumtion), but at a cost of increased programming complexity.

#4 p3ngwin1 on 16 Feb 2009 - 21:40

i think that things like the Qualcomm MSM72xx series of chips have been marketed as "duel/multi" core because they have an ARM cpu and a DSp module in the same package.

but a better truth of the definition of XXcore processors is that the processing cores are the same, that is they are multiples. in Intel's and AMD's multi-core desktop/laptop processors, the CPU cores are the same, and therefore thay are multiples.

ARM does have ARM multicore designs with it's "coretx" A8 series, of which Qualcomm has made a "snapdragon" duel core processor.

as for the "more cores saves power and time", well there is truth to that. in the same way that having a dedicated GPU for mobile devices saves power and time because it would take the CPU longer (hence more battery power) to complete a task, the same is true for having many cores. the task gets done quicker and therefore consumes less power.

it's still not clear and a case of obvious marketing though

#5 Sazz181 on 16 Feb 2009 - 21:45

This sound like great news for the advancement of mobile technology. Things are really kicking off in the mobile world.

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