World's first 1.5GHz tri-core application processor unveiled

The Armada 628, incorporates an SoC design with three ARM compliant cpu cores, operating as what Marvell describes as the world's first commercially available heterogeneous, multicore, applications processor. Weili Dai, vice president and general manager of Marvell Semiconductor's Consumer and Computing Business Unit, said the processor was capable of, "delivering dual stream 1080p 3d video and 3d graphics performance with quad unified shaders for 200million triangles per second delivered on ultra low power, long battery life smartphones and tablets. This is important because today's consumers expect robust enterprise and consumer applications delivered to the palm of their hands." The tri-core design integrates two symmetric multiprocessing cores and a third core optimised for ultra low power. The third core is designed to support routine user tasks and acts as a system management processor to monitor and dynamically scale power and performance. According to Marvell, the architecture ensures a richer, faster and smoother experience than any other ARM-based processor available. The Armada 628 is designed to play over 10hours of full 1080p hd video or 140hours of music on a single charge while still providing 3 GHz of power. The cpu comprises a complete SoC design – which Marvell claims is a first for the industry – and there are six additional processing engines to support 3d graphics, 1080p video encode/decode, audio, cryptography and digital photo data processing.