19 February 2009

ST Ericsson Fails To Make
Dual-core Cortex-A9 SMP Demo at MWC

ST-Ericsson's previously heralded demonstration of the Symbian operating system running on a dual-core Cortex-A9 processor platform did not, after all, make it to the Mobile World Congress or even to Barcelona.

ST-Ericsson claimed that by using their SMP the Symbian OS would be capable of running more applications, more effectively, while also reducing overall power consumption.

They said that demonstration performed on an ARM Cortex-A9 based system would be done at a 'private event' but it didn't happen!

The latest word on the ST-Ericsson demo is that it is sitting in the newly-formed group's development labs in Geneva, Switzerland. And the demonstration is not of a system-chip as the development is still in an FPGA-phase, according to a source at ST-Ericsson.

Much of the hardware aspect of the project has been done in Geneva, but of course, "the key aspect will be the integration of the silicon, operating system and applications, and that will need lots of partnerships."

If it had taken place on schedule on Tuesday (Feb. 17) it would have been an interesting counter-point to the OMAP-4 from Texas Instruments which launched Yesterday. Of course, OMAP-4 was also here only in spirit as the platform and development tools are not expected to sample until the second half of 2009, with production expected by the second half of 2010.