ARM has announced its Cortex-A7 MPCore processor, which the chipmaker says is its most energy-efficient application class processor ever. The Cortex-A7 processor builds on the low-power performance of the Cortex-A8 CPU that powers many modern smartphones including the Nokia N9, LG Optimus Black and Motorola Defy.

According to ARM a single Cortex-A7 processor delivers five times the energy-efficiency and is one fifth the size of the Cortex-A8 processor, whilst also providing significantly greater performance. The Cortex-A7 processor will enable a rich user experience by 2013 for entry-level products that fall in the below $100 (around R810) price bracket.

The company stated that a challenge for chipmakers is how to create a system-on-a-chip (SoC), that meets the conflicting consumer demand for devices with both higher-performance and extended battery life. Its Cortex-A7 will achieve this via Big.LITTLE processing, which allows devices to seamlessly select the right processor for the right task, based on performance requirements. This dynamic selection is transparent to the application software or middleware running on the processors.

ARM partners supporting these technologies include Broadcom, LG Electronics, RIM-owned QNX, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments.

 

In other mobile processor related news Samsung recently unveiled its latest Exynos application processor, the Exynos 4212, which is a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 application processor running at speeds of up to 1.5 GHz.