ARM wants to be king in the mobile tech space and believes that the new Core-A17 processor may just be its ticket to success. The Core-A17 processor is based on big.LITTLE architecture and boasts a 60 percent improvement in performance.
The Cortex-A17 processor is very versatile in that it can function on its own as a quad-core or be placed together with four Core-A7 processors to make one giant octa-core processor. Currently, octa-core processors are very much in vogue, so ARM should have no trouble selling off A17s to manufacturers who like to double their processors' core counts.
The first company to take ARM's bait was MediaTek, which just announced that its upcoming MT6595 processor will feature ARM's Core-A17 processor in its own octa-core chip alongside a quartet of Core-A7 processors.
ARM's new processor will certainly appeal to manufacturers who are looking to make devices with powerful quad-core processors, too. ARM is counting on the allure of its low prices to attract manufacturers from the growing mid-range segment of the mobile technology market.
"The Cortex-A17 processor, in combination with its high-efficiency counterpart Cortex-A7 processor, provides an ideal solution for mobile devices in 2015 and beyond, bringing the heterogeneous processing benefits of big.LITTLE Global Task Switching (GTS) to the mid-range market," ARM said in a statement.
The company aims to put the Core-A17 processor into smartphones with prices of around $200 unsubsidized. MediaTek seconded ARM's opinion that making high-powered processors for the mid-to-low-end smartphone and tablet market is the way to go.
"Coupled with CoreLink System IP components like the CoreLink CCI-400 interconnect, Cortex-A17 and Cortex-A7 processors are the foundation for upcoming devices that are more efficient and higher performance than any solution in this class before," ARM's statement said.
The new ARM Mali-T720 GPU that comes along with the Core-A17 also offers significant energy savings. ARM says the energy efficiency of the GPU has increased by 150 percent, while graphics processing has improved by 50 percent in comparison with other low-to-mid range GPUs. The CPU has OpenGL ES 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 and RenderScript, as well as a Mali-V500 video processor for 4K video recording or playback.
ARM will sell its new chips to any interested manufacturer from Samsung and MediaTek to Rockchip and others. Although the Core-A17 is mostly intended for use in smartphones and tablets, it can also be used in SmartTVs, in-car systems and other gadgets. The Core-A17 processor is expected to make its way onto devices either before the end of this year or the beginning of 2015.
