Samsung today introduced its new 1GHz ARM CORTEX A9-based dual-core application processor, codenamed Orion, for advanced mobile applications. The chip is a successor to the company’s 1GHz Hummingbird processor, which currently powers the Galaxy S line of smartphones.
Samsung is pitching the processor for use in high-performance, low-power mobile applications including tablets, netbooks and smartphones. Orion will be demonstrated at the seventh annual Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum held in Taiwan.
“Given this trend, mobile device designers need an application processor platform that delivers superb multimedia performance, fast CPU processing speed and abundant memory bandwidth. Samsung’s newest dual core application processor chip is designed specifically to fulfill such stringent performance requirements while maintaining long battery life,” said Dojun Rhee, vice president of Marketing, System LSI Division, Samsung Electronics, in a statement.
Orion was designed using Samsung’s 45-nanometer low-power process technology. The processor features a pair of 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 cores, each with a 32KB data cache and a 32KB instruction cache. Samsung also included a 1MB L2 cache to optimize CPU processing performance and improve the speed of context switching in a multi-tasking environment. In addition, the memory interface and bus architecture of Orion supports data intensive multimedia applications including full HD video playback and high speed 3D action games.
Orion will be available to select customers in the fourth quarter of 2010 and is scheduled for mass production in the first half of 2011.