Marvell, Qualcomm, Freescale, they’re all battling it out to create the fastest ARMv7 compatible processor. You all know the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, inside devices such as the Google/HTC Nexus One and the HTC HD2, well Marvell wants a piece of the action and yesterday they announced the ARMADA 610. It has a 1 GHz powered processor, 1080p decode and encode engine with HDMI out, hardware accelerated graphics that can pump out 45 million triangles per second, Open GL ES 2.0 and and Open VG compatibility, and it can pump out 2,000 x 2,000 pixels to 4 different screens simotaniously. What does this really mean for you? Different companies competing to make high performance mobile phone processors = cheaper devices.
Marvell didn’t stop there however, today they announced the first quad core ARMv7 processor. No word as to a particular SKU, ship date, or power usage. I’m thinking this is one of those press releases that announces something only 100 people care about and in all likelihood will be vaporware.
Prove me wrong Marvell!