The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the first smartphone to boast an “octo-core” processor. The chip is based on ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture – four ARM A15 processors running at 1.8 GHz and four smaller ARM A7 processors running at 1.2 GHz. The A15 chips do the heavy lifting, like processing video, and the A7 chips kick in for less demanding tasks in order to preserve battery life.
ARM demonstrated the big.little processor at Mobile World Congress. “We’re able to extend the dynamic processing range of mobile devices and we’re able to achieve greater energy efficiencies than existing techniques today,” said Laurence Bryant, director of marketing for mobile solutions at ARM. “The software switches back and forth seamlessly across these processors to really achieve a great combination of energy efficiency and high performance computing.”
The combination of high performance and energy efficiency is already delivered by quad-core chipsets, leading some observers to wonder if the “octo-core” is overkill. But ARM says the big.little solution uses measurably less battery than quad-core chipsets.
