Mobile Processors Getting Even Better

Our mobile devices feature a lot of different technologies, but at the core of it all is the mobile processor. Without the advancement of microscopic processors, your smartphone wouldn’t be so smart—it’d just be a phone. As mobile processors become more powerful, mobile phone manufacturers add new and improved features, including larger screens, higher-quality media playback, and faster-loading Web content. In this article, we’ll cover the ways processors have changed recently and show you what features future processors may deliver on mobile devices.

• Portable Entertainment & Navigation
  Only a couple of years ago, a smartphone’s primary duties consisted of basic email, PIM (personal information management), and various professional tasks. Recent processor speed enhancements, plus the integration of video and audio codec processing, allow most new mobile phones—even budget models—to play back audio and low-resolution video. For example, many new smartphones use a 400MHz or faster processor (generally based on an ARM applications processor design) that has been optimized for use with multimedia files encoded in MPEG4, H264, Windows Media Video, and Real Video. Additionally, mobile processor manufacturers increase efficiency by designing the processor to best handle a third-party operating system, such as Windows Mobile, Symbian, or iPhone.
  

Mobile processor manufacturers have also begun to include graphics hardware acceleration capabilities that allow the processor to dedicate resources to displaying images and effects. One of the most prominent mobile processor manufacturers, Qualcomm, indicates that devices featuring its QST processors deliver rich media support for photos, video playback at up to 640 x 480 pixels, mobile TV, and assisted GPS. Graphics powerhouse Nvidia also recently entered the mobile arena with its Tegra line of mobile processors, which combine an ARM CPU and Nvidia GPU capable of playing high-definition-quality video. Nvidia also indicates that its Tegra processors let you play mobile games featuring 3D environments and other eye-candy effects, rather than the simplistic 2D games.

• Faster Web Page Loading

In previous years, the combination of poor connection speed, limited processing power, and small screen size made Web pages with images and other animations slow or impossible to load on mobile phones. At the 2009 Mobile World Congress, LG and Intel indicated they will work together to create a MID (mobile Internet device) using Intel’s Atom processors that deliver a “PC-like Internet experience while supporting cell phone voice capabilities.” One example of a current MID is the OQO Model 2+ .

The palm-sized MID features a 1.86GHz Intel Atom processor and 2GB of memory, and it can run Windows Vista. The greater availability of high-speed data networks, such as 3G, means that many of you have access to near broadband connections on your mobile phone. However, the mobile processors on more affordable smartphones may not be equipped to handle all the data the high-speed connection can provide. Several manufacturers, including Qualcomm with its MSM7227 chipset, have crafted processors for affordable smartphones that can take full advantage of the high-speed connections. For example, Qualcomm’s MSM7227 chipset features a 600MHz applications processor and a 400MHz modem processor, so it includes dedicated hardware for Web access.