Phone-Bound Samsung ARM Chip Breaks 1GHz

Posted 07/28/2009 at 8:00am | by Paul Lilly

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Is that 1GHz in your pocket or, well, you know the rest. The answer may soon be 'both,' as Samsung and Intrinsity jointly announced a 1GHz ARM processor that will likely find a home in the iPhone and other similar devices. Code named Hummingbird, the co-developed 1GHz chip is very similar to the 600MHz Samsung processor based on the ARM Cortex A8 design that currently powers the iPhone 3G, CNet reports.

"Samsung could drop Hummingbird into the existing S5PC100 design with few or no changes," said Tom R. Halfhill, senior analyst at the Microprocessor Report. "Bingo! A next-gen iPhone that could run at speeds up to 1GHz."

On the design side, getting to 1GHz meant using a 45nm manufacturing process, whereas most other ARM chips currently on the market are built around a 65nm manufacturing process. That represents somewhat of a change in design philosophy from ARM, who previously focused more on power efficiency than it did on high-performance.

Nevertheless, Samsung and Intrinsity say the new chip's multi-Vdd / multi-frequency design methodology ensures Hummingbird can run at a high speed even at the minimum supply voltage of 1.0V.

Image Credit: Samsung via Slashgear.com