Samsung unveils Orion for advanced mobile applications

The dual processor chip platform has been designed for high performance, low power mobile applications including tablets, netbooks and smartphones. Designed using Samsung's 45nm low power process technology, Orion features a pair of 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 cores, each comes with a 32KB data cache and a 32KB instruction cache. The company has also included a 1MB L2 cache to optimise cpu processing performance and provide context switching in a multi tasking environment. The memory interface and bus architecture of Orion have been designed to support data intensive multimedia applications including full hd video playback and high speed 3d games. Samsung's new application processor incorporates multimedia features implemented by hardware accelerators, such as video encoder/decoder that supports 30fps video playback and recording at 1080P full hd resolution. According to Samsung, by using an enhanced gpu, the new processors are capable of delivering five times the 3d graphics performance over previous versions. The Orion processor offers a choice of storage including nand flash, moviNand, ssd or hdd and users can also choose appropriate memory options including low power LPddr2 or ddr3, which is commonly used for high performance. A gps receiver baseband processor is embedded in the processor to support location based services - critical in many emerging mobile applications. The new dual core application processor will be available in the fourth quarter of 2010 and is scheduled for mass production in the first half of 2011.