Introduction to Mobile Quad-core Processors

MWC2012 has not officially started yet, but many chip manufacturers have already announced their own quad-core flagship products, including Nvidia Tegra3, Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, Samsung Exynos, Huawei HiSilicon K3V2 and Texas Instruments TI OMAP 5 SoS. Let's take a look:

Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor

It is known that LG and MOTO ATRIX 3 phones will use Tegra3 quad-core processor, which uses 40nm process, the same as Tegra2. From this point, it can be seen that Tegra3 has no significant improvement. The highest frequency of this quad-core is 1.3GHz, the CPU performance can reach 5 times that of Tegra2, and the internal integrated 12-core GeForce GPU is 3 times that of Tegra 2.

Tegra 3

In addition, Tegra 3 is actually a five-core product, because there is an auxiliary processing chip to balance the load. Short standby and battery life have always been a concern for smartphone users, especially in the current era of large screens. When dual-core processors were first introduced, many people were worried about their power consumption and battery life. Now that Tegra 3 has more processing cores, power consumption and battery life have once again become the focus of attention. How does Tegra 3 maintain a balance between performance and power consumption? Let's take a look at the architecture diagram, design ideas and solutions of Tegra 3.

Tegra 3 processor core diagram

Qualcomm quad-core processor

Qualcomm is the processor brand currently used by most mobile phone manufacturers, and its research and development of quad-core processors is synchronized with other manufacturers. Its latest quad-core chipset APQ8064 is a high-end product of Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, which is based on a new micro-architecture code-named "Krait". Krait adopts 28 nanometer micro-architecture, achieving a processing speed of up to 2.5GHz per core and lower power consumption and heat dissipation, thus supporting a new thin and light appearance of terminal products.

Qualcomm Snapdragon series processor

28nm microarchitecture will bring higher clock speed and lower power consumption

The APQ8064 processor will include the Adreno 320 quad-core GPU, which will deliver 15 times the performance of the previous Adreno GPU, enabling console-quality gaming and rendering rich user interfaces. With support for up to 20 megapixel cameras, the APQ8064 can internally synchronize two camera sensors for 3D video recording and support external 3D video playback.

Samsung Exynos quad-core processor

Samsung is the only mobile phone brand that has its own CPU production capabilities. In addition to the Exynos4210 dual-core processor used in the existing I9100, Samsung has also launched the Exynos 5450 processor, which naturally has stronger performance than the current Exynos 4210.

Samsung Exynos 5250

Exynos 5450 uses the latest Cortex-A15 architecture, while Exynos 4210 uses the Cortex-A9 architecture and is equipped with a Mali-658 graphics processor, supporting a maximum screen resolution of 2560x1600 pixels. In comparison, the processor has stronger performance and better power consumption. It has four cores and the main frequency of this processor is as high as 2GHz, which makes it more capable of multitasking.

There is no model using the Exynos 5450 processor yet, but judging from many previous rumors, the Samsung Galaxy S III to be released in March this year is likely to be the first model to be equipped with this processor, and it is also likely to be used in Samsung's own tablet computers.

Huawei HiSilicon K3V2 quad-core processor

Huawei HiSilicon is a chip manufacturer under Huawei. In the past, the only processor product we have seen is probably the Hisilicon-K3. HiSilicon K3 is a processor model that can be seen on smartphones recently, with a main frequency of 460MHz and an ARM11 licensed core.

HiSilicon K3 quad-core processor with 16 built-in GPUs

After a short period of time, Huawei successfully developed the HiSilicon K3V2 processor, which uses a 32nm process and can reach a frequency of 1.2GHz/1.5GHz. Its 3D performance is said to be twice that of Tegra 3. This is a wonder for domestic manufacturers. If the performance is really strong enough, I believe more manufacturers will use it in the future. The smallest, fastest, and lowest heat-generating K3V2 quad-core processor brings users a smoother and more perfect smartphone experience. When running ultra-large 3D games on Huawei Ascend D quad, its running speed and operating smoothness can even be comparable to PCs. In addition, the smaller and lower heat-generating quad-core processor also brings more space for smartphone design.

Various running points, performance is far ahead

In comparison tests with current top-level mobile phones and top-level quad-core tablets, Huawei Ascend D quad is in the leading position in terms of CPU computing speed, 2D and 3D graphics processing, memory performance, and I/O access speed.

It is reported that the specifications of HiSilicon K3V2 are only 12*12mm, which is the world's smallest quad-core processor with the highest integration. In addition, K3V2 has Huawei's unique IPPS self-management low power consumption technology and heat control technology, which solves the heat problem that high-performance chips are difficult to deal with. Similar to the memory bandwidth of computers, the memory of mobile phones is also developing towards high bandwidth. Currently, K3V2 uses 64-bit memory bandwidth, which is twice as high as the ordinary 32-bit.

The mobile phone processors of the above brands have their own advantages, but except for the official release of the mobile phone using HiSilicon K3V2, the other products have not yet been finalized. However, this year is the first year of the development of quad-core mobile phones, and we will see more quad-core mobile phone products.