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The Engadget Interview: ARM's Lead Mobile Strategist James Bruce (video)
Last week we got the chance to spend a few minutes with James Bruce, ARM's Lead Mobile Strategist, to chat about the company's past, present and future. We discussed the recent Cortex A50 announcement and ARM's broad history -- including key products like the Nokia 6110 and how the company's chip designs have "changed how people compute and lead their digital life" over the past five years. We also talked about the scalability and flexibility of the ARM architecture, from embedded systems to smartphones and tablets to servers. So what's in the pockets of one of the most important people in the chip world? A Nexus 7 and a global Galaxy S III, it turns out. Go ahead and watch the full interview above.
ARM predicts dual-core Cortex-A15 devices in late 2012, quad-core variants 'later on'
Smartphones and tablets, the two hottest categories of consumer devices right now, are dominated by ARM processor designs, so when the company speaks up about its product roadmap, we're inclined to listen in close. The next generation of ARM system-on-chip has been dubbed Cortex-A15 and was expected to ship in 2013, but that's now been accelerated slightly to late 2012, which is when we're told to expect actual devices on sale with A15 silicon on board. Single- and dual-core variants will get us started, before quad-core options start filtering through in 2013. ARM promises a stunning fivefold improvement in performance over current Cortex-A9 SOCs and already has NVIDIA, Samsung, ST-Ericsson, and Texas Instruments signed up as licensees for that new hotness. So now even Samsung's "desktop-class" 2GHz dual-core chip that's slated for 2012 has a reason to look over its shoulder. Happy times!
