Samsung is looking to take smartphones and tablets to the next level by introducing an 8 core processing chip.
The SoC will alternate between the clusters and according to EETimes it isn’t capable of running all 8 cores simultaneously; however, the upside is Samsung will be able to squeeze longer lasting battery life from the device.
Galaxy tablets in particular will benefit from such a versatile chipset as they multitask larger applications. As for smartphones, Androidheadlines.com propose a dual core equivalent could be in the pipelines, consisting of a dual core Cortex A7@ 1.2GHz and a dual core Cortex A15 overclocked to 2GHz. This would give powerful smartphones a more efficient gear and ultimately, better battery life.
Samsung rival LG believes battery life is the most pertinent problem with smartphones today.
“Battery life is the most important factor for a lot of existing smartphone users,” began Brad Reed, the Marketing Manager of LG’s Mobile Communications division. “It’s the thing that comes out as the pressure point at the moment in terms of satisfaction with smartphones.”
LG recently launched the first smartphone powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 chipset. Unlike most processors, this quad core chipset throttles the power individually to each core.
“For us to be able to manage the processor side of things as well as the battery capacity elements is incredibly important,” added Reed.
LG’s Nexus 4 is currently the only smartphone available featuring the new S4 processor, but it will also be equipping LG’s upcoming Optimus G.
Samsung is expected to describe the new SoC in February at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSC).
In related news, the Galaxy S4 rumours are kicking in with GSMArena reporting it will come with a quad Cortex-A15 CPU with the Exynos 5450 chipset.