27 March 2007

Symbian first to deliver ARM Cortex-A8 technology for smartphones

Symbian Ltd. has announced that Symbian OS™, the market-leading open operating system for smartphones, is the first mobile OS to support the new ARM Cortex-A8 processor currently running on Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) OMAP3430 application processor.

Symbian OS is fully scalable across all ARM processor architectures, enabling record performance levels for smartphones

The technology enables significantly higher Symbian smartphone performance whilst maintaining greater power efficiency and lowering development costs for handset manufacturers.

Symbian OS is also the first mobile OS to be fully scalable across all ARM processor architectures from the ARM Cortex-A8 processor, through mainstream ARM11™ family of processors, to cost-effective ARM9™ family of processors. The ARM Cortex-A8 processor, which is based on ARM v7 architecture, is the highest performance most power-efficient applications processor developed by ARM to date and is designed to enrich mobile phones with applications that formerly required the consumption levels of a PC.

"Symbian continues to be at the forefront of enabling next generation processor technology and is the first to commercialize a cutting-edge mobile phone solution based on this latest generation of ARM processors,” said Jørgen Behrens, executive vice president, marketing, Symbian. “This announcement provides further evidence that the intensive R&D collaboration between Symbian, ARM and TI continues to drive innovation in mobile technology. This platform development ensures Symbian smartphones have even higher performance levels, enabling the richest application experiences on mobile phones."

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“The ARM Cortex-A8 processor-based Symbian OS solution running on the new TI OMAP3430 processor brings desktop levels of performance to low-cost, high-volume smartphones for the first time – delivering up to three times the performance of today’s highest performance handsets,” said Mike Inglis, executive vice president, sales and marketing, ARM. “Symbian’s expert use of ARM tools and our established partnership has resulted in some of the most innovative technologies for the mobile market today. We look forward to working further with Symbian and continuing to develop innovative new ways to enhance ground-breaking Symbian smartphone performance.”

The ARM Cortex-A8 processor-based Symbian OS solution runs on the new TI OMAP3430 applications processor, the first applications processor in 65nm technology, delivering faster user interfaces and data access, while boosting productivity and entertainment applications and maintaining power efficiencies expected in a handset. The compatibility of Symbian OS v9 and the ARMv7 architecture enabled TI to quickly and easily port existing code onto the new OMAP3430 processor, demonstrating reduction in cost and delivery time to market.

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“We are very pleased to continue our longstanding relationship with Symbian and ARM. The flexibility of Symbian OS combined with the performance of the ARM Cortex-A8 processor and market-leading OMAP 3 architecture in 65 nm are driving powerful smartphone solutions,” said Richard Kerslake, worldwide general manager, 3G and OMAP business, Texas Instruments.

Available on the latest versions of Symbian OS including Symbian OS v9.5 also announced today. With over 110 million Symbian smartphones shipped and over 70% share of the smartphone market, Symbian is committed to providing the world’s leading handset vendors with the most competitive mobile operating system to meet the demands of the mass market and the rich experiences of tomorrow’s smartphone lifestyle.