ARM Reveals Its Most Powerful Mobile Processors Yet

ARM has unveiled the next generation of its mobile processors, which it says will provide smartphone users with more power than ever before.

Due to start appearing in devices in 2016, the new 64-bit Cortex-A72 will give smartphone users console-quality graphics and gaming experiences, as well as enabling 4K video content on thinner and lighter smartphones than ever before.

The Cambridge-based company, whose technology is licensed by chipmakers such as Qualcomm and Samsung, says that the new processors has 3.5 times the performance of its comparable products from 2014, and uses 75 percent less power than older hardware, providing a major boost to smartphone battery life.

Bring the power

Overall, the new chip provides 50 times more computing power than the leading smartphones from five years ago, showing how far the industry has come over the past few years.

“Our new premium mobile experience IP suite with the Cortex-A72 processor delivers a decisive step forward from the compelling user experiences provided by this year’s Cortex-A57 based devices,” said Pete Hutton, executive vice president and president, products groups, ARM.

“For multiple generations, together with our partners, we have delivered the leading-edge of the premium mobile experience. Building on this, in 2016 the ARM ecosystem will deliver even slimmer, lighter, more immersive mobile devices that serve as your primary and only compute platform.”

The new chip is based on the company’s ARMv8-A architecture to allow energy-efficient 64-bit processing up to frequencies of 2.5Ghz, putting it far ahead of many smartphones already on the market.

ARM says that more than 10 partners have already signed up to work with the new processor, including the likes of HiSilicon, MediaTek and Rockchip.

“The pace of innovation in mobile is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, which means we need to deliver the latest technology to our customers as fast as possible,” said Joe Chen, senior vice president of MediaTek.

“We are pleased to partner with ARM for the launch of Cortex-A72, bringing the ARMv8-A architecture to market with leading performance and energy-efficiency benchmarks. Ultimately it is all about providing a better experience for end users as the complexity of applications, content and devices increases.”

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