ARM Launches New Chip For Smartphones, Netbooks

Part of that opportunity comes in emerging markets, he said, where the issue is not just cost, but battery life, given that many places in the world have limited access to power supplies.

“These [new devices used in these areas] will have to be very power efficient,” Lanier said.

The Cortex-A5 uses about a third of the power of the ARM 11 chip, which plays in the midrange market, which translates into the ability to double the battery life, Lanier said. It also costs about 80 percent less to manufacture than the ARM 9, he said.

The Cortex-A5 has two designs, one for a general-purpose chip at a frequency of 1GHz and a power envelope of 80 milliwatts. The second is a low-power chip that runs at 500MHz.