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        ARM tipped for netbooks

        Jonathan Angel | Date: Oct 23, 2008 | Comments: 1


        Netbooks using ARM's high-end "Cortex A" family of processor cores will begin appearing soon, a senior executive at the firm is reported as saying. Rob Coombs, ARM's director of mobile solutions, says to "expect announcements in the next few months," as quoted by ZDNet UK.



        The netbook category was, of course, christened by ARM's chief rival, Intel, which coined the moniker for low-cost subnotebooks that use low-powered x86 processors such as the A110 or Atom. Future "netbooks" based on ARM cores would be unable to run Windows XP or Vista, unless Microsoft chose to port to the architecture. Instead, they'd run ARM-compatible operating systems such as Windows Mobile, Windows CE, or Linux.

        Meanwhile, the market for smaller MIDs (mobile Internet devices) will be dominated by ARM, despite Atom and other new lower-powered x86 processors, according to a June report on the MID market from Forward Concepts. The firm also expects Windows Mobile -- Microsoft's smartphone OS -- to play a role in the MID market.

        "In the future, we're going to be in netbooks," Coombs is reported as saying. Products, which may offer "gigahertz speeds," will be based first on ARM's Cortex-A8 processor, and later on the company's multicore Cortex-A9, Coombs is said to have added.

        According to ZDnet.co.uk writer David Meyer, Coombs did not name any manufacturers who are preparing to release Cortex netbooks, instead referencing ARM's published list of licensees. Chipmakers licensed to produce Cortex A9 CPUs are NEC, Nvidia, STmicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba, ARM says. Meanwhile, those licensed to produce Cortex A8 products are Broadcom, Freescale, Matsushita, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, and PMC-Sierra, adds ARM.

        One likely candidate


        Nvidia's Tegra APX2500
        (Click image for further information)
        Out of the above, Nvidia may be the likeliest candidate to extend Cortex technology into netbooks, since it has already started combining its notebook graphics processors with ARM cores, in SoCs aimed at the "mobile" market. The chipmaker in February launched the 600MHz Tegra APX2500, following up in June with the 700MHz Tegra 600 and 800MHz Tegra 650, the latter touted as supporting display resolutions up to 1680 x 1050.

        Touting its ARM products as offering a "desktop-class user experience," Nvidia says they are up to 10 times more power efficient than x86-compatible CPUs. The Tegra processors run Windows CE and Windows Mobile natively on ARM11 cores, and also include Nvidia's ultra-low power GeForce GPU (graphics processing unit), with Direct 3D Mobile graphics compatibility and 2D graphics acceleration. For a block diagram of the Tegra, see here.


        Nvidia's APX 2500 development platform
        (Click either view to enlarge)

        Nvidia has not yet promoted the Tegras for netbook use specifically, but has already released a Tegra MID (mobile internet device) development platform (shown above), which runs Windows Mobile and features an HDMI port for video output. Emphasizing the Tegra's role as a potential x86 replacement, the company has demonstrated it running 3D virtual world software previously associated mostly with high-end desktop computers. It also announced an agreement with Opera Software, via which Tegra devices will be able to offer an "optimized, pre-integrated" version of the Opera Mobile 9.5 web browser.

        Background

        If and when Cortex netbooks appear, they'll be even more powerful than the Tegra products mentioned above. The Cortex-A8, first announced in October 2005, has a superscalar architecture theoretically capable of dispatching two to three times more instructions per cycle than ARM11, while power consumption is no greater, claims ARM. For further details, see our earlier coverage, here.

        Earlier this year, Texas Instruments (TI) launched a bevy of Cortex-A8 processors, including the OMAP 3440, aimed at mobile phones, and the OMAP 35xx, which is said to target "Internet appliances" and PMPs (portable media players). The top model in the latter family, the OMAP 3530, is said to decode HD video at 30 frames per second, and also sports an OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics accelerator, TI says.


        ARM Cortex A9 in MPCore configuration
        (Click to enlarge)

        In 2007, ARM announced the multicore-enabled Cortex-A9, which, thanks to MPCore interconnect technology (above), is claimed to support SoC (system on chip designs) with up to four A9 cores. The Cortex-A9 will offer clock speeds over 1GHz, and will provide "four to 16 times the performance" of ARM11 while still fitting within the same power envelope, says ARM. For more details, see our earlier coverage, here.

        Further information

        To read ZDNet.co.uk's story regarding ARM netbooks, see here. To review WindowsForDevices' Windows-powered netbook showcase, go here.


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