DALLAS, Texas and CAMBRIDGE, England, October 4 -- Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) and ARM announced at the ARM Developers' Conference in Santa Clara, Calif., that TI is the first licensee and ARM's lead Partner in the development of the new ARM Cortex-A8 processor. TI intends to use the Cortex-A8 processor across a range of next-generation, ultra-low power 3G modems and high-performance, OMAP(tm) application processors manufactured in 65nm processes and enhanced by TI's SmartReflex power and performance management technologies and M-Shield security solution.

The rapid convergence of digital entertainment and communications requires a new level of system performance and security, all within a low-cost, low-power, high-performance framework based on open processing platforms. The ARM Cortex-A8 processor will be a key driver, enabling handset manufacturers to deliver more than four times the performance of existing solutions for applications such as mobile entertainment, communications and gaming. The Cortex-A8 processor was specifically designed with the technical demands of these marketplace needs in mind, while still enabling TI and its customers to meet tight time-to-market constraints.

"TI has been one of ARM's lead Partners for more than 12 years, and during this time we have shipped an impressive 1.7 billion ARM processor-based chips," said Gilles Delfassy, TI's senior vice president of its Wireless Terminals Business Unit. "TI built the industry's leading baseband processing product and OMAP applications processor by combining ARM processors with TI DSPs for telecom and multimedia and by supporting micro-computing based on open standards. And now, as the first Cortex-A8 processor licensee, TI continues to be first-to-market with the most advanced wireless processing solutions. We look forward to continuing to bring new applications and devices to the mobile consumer marketplace."

"The rapid evolution of wireless and consumer products is demanding greater processing performance, combined with exceptional power efficiency and system security, to deliver exciting new features and services to end users," said Warren East, CEO, ARM. "TI was our first silicon Partner to license and implement the technology in its upcoming wireless designs."

Cortex-A8 Processor Benefits

The Cortex-A8 processor is the first applications processor based on the next-generation ARMv7 architecture, and features Thumb-2 technology for greater performance, energy efficiency, and code density. It includes the first implementation of the powerful NEON multimedia extensions to accelerate media codecs such as H.264 and MP3. The Cortex-A8 solution also includes Jazelle-RCT Java-acceleration technology to optimize Just In Time (JIT) and Dynamic Adaptive Compilation (DAC), and reduce memory footprint by up to three times. Additionally, the new processor features TrustZone technology for secure transactions and Digital Rights Management (DRM), and Intelligent Energy Manager (IEM) capability for low power.

Availability

The ARM Cortex-A8 processor is available for licensing from ARM now.