ARM is certainly making some major headlines, and, just as soon as Samsung announced its Orion application processor based on the Cortex A9 design, and GlobalFoundries is open for 28nm orders, it has decided to show off its latest processor design: the Cortex A15 MPcore.
Though dual-core mobile processors are definitely not a thing of the past (hell, people are still coming to terms with that much power under the hood), ARM has developed a processor that is certainly ahead of its time – quad-core 2.5GHz mobile processor. Codenamed Eagle, the ARM Cortex-A15 MPcore processors might one day make their way into smartphones, but for now, it will be best suited for netbook/tablet applications, and, as designed, for high-density cloud server racks. So while the processor has already been snapped up by Texas Instruments, the wide-reaching hands of ST-Ericsson and Samsung are also eager for a piece of the pie, and have been named as “lead licensees”. Thus, you can definitely expect a whole range of devices featuring the Cortex A15 MPcore to head your way, and also power many cloud-based services you will soon be taking for granted.
If you are wondering about the memory capacity and virtualization capabilities of the processor, and just how well it would fit in the high-density server rack environment, you will find the answer reveals server applications were exactly what ARM was thinking about when designing the Cortex A15. It is very evident when you see the processors have embedded hardware virtualization and support for nearly 1TB of memory.
The Eagle lineup of ARM processors will feature a whole range of designs, from single-core (with speeds up to 1.5GHz) to quad-core (with speeds up to 2.5GHz), and from 32nm to 28nm. Expect the parts to be mass-produced and shipped only by 2013. Check out a video by ARM below, showcasing the new processor.
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