LG prepping a smartphone CPU of its own, grabs an ARM license

26 April, 2011
The megapixel race of yesterday is the smartphone processor race of today and it seems every one wants in. Today it's LG's turn to get all serious about CPUs as it just got the license to use the ARM Cortex CPU...

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  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • uwC
  • 31 Jul 2017

Lol

    • Y
    • Yani
    • 3pw
    • 02 May 2011

    I see GsmArena is getting worse at writing articles! :(
    "This is good news as it means that pretty soon in the future we'll have the choice between many different smartphones with different CPUs."
    YES, this would be good news, if manufactuers would be producing exactly the same CPUs (like Intel & AMD), BUT in real world this is BAD news, because every CPU maker (Samsung, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, TI,...) adds new instruction sets and registers!
    It's time consuming for the developers (if they want to use those extra features in their games) and therefore bad for the consumer (if he has a different CPU than the CPU that the game was intended for).
    I know it is present in some games like Krazy Kart Racers, Monopoly Classic,....
    This problem is only present in games, because they are most CPU intensive.
    This is called CPU fragmentation that bugs Android.

      • D
      • AnonD-5197
      • qbY
      • 28 Apr 2011

      guideX, 28 Apr 2011If you think the plain ARM A8 in the Hummingbird is a bette... moreYou missed my entire point. Samsung chips stand competition in the market, and so will LG chips when they start their own manufacturing.

        • D
        • AnonD-7240
        • MEE
        • 28 Apr 2011

        guideX, 28 Apr 2011If you think the plain ARM A8 in the Hummingbird is a bette... moreHmmm... IIRC Both Hummingbird & Snapdragon are cortex A8 'based' SoCs with various optimisations.
        Hummingbird most certainly had an ARM Cortex A8 design reworked with domino logic (by Intrinsity) to offer 'supposedly' better efficiency. Qualcomm had similarly tinkered with the base A8 to create the snapdragon.

        Maybe the Hummingbird SoC contained a 'plain' A8 but most certainly it was not on planet earth! :D

          • A
          • ASK
          • MEE
          • 28 Apr 2011

          guideX, 28 Apr 2011If you think the plain ARM A8 in the Hummingbird is a bette... moreCan you point me to a 'COMPREHENSIVE' test which compares the the SGX540/543, Mali 400MP, Tegra2 & Adreno 220 GPUs from where you drew your conclusion of Adreno 'smashing' Mail?
          And I dont mean Neocore/ OpenGL and other such benchmarks.Do you have some in-game testing data, UI fluidity test along with synth benchmarks which proves 'Real Life' performance?
          These GPUs have very different architectures and respond very differently to benchmarks which makes cross-GPU evaluation very difficult.
          I quite hate the iPhone brigade but is there any doubt that the ~800MHz ARM Cortex A8 +SGX 535 actually had a smoother UI experience over 'faster' Android phones? Of course these are different Os'es . The point im trying to make is its patently useless frothing at the mouth over benchmarks & GHz values. They could give a rough pointer but there are far more things at play here (including efficiency of the manufacturer specific overlays,firmware/ software optimisations etc).
          Possibly the best idea is to actually USE the phone at a store and find out how the UI feels, how some games work, how good is the flash implementation etc. You guys now just sound like the Intel Fanboys of the P4 era .. we all know (i suppose) how the GHz race turned out for Intel then!

            • g
            • guideX
            • 98r
            • 28 Apr 2011

            AnonD-5197, 27 Apr 2011lol, not much of a fanboy towards any particular company. I... moreIf you think the plain ARM A8 in the Hummingbird is a better CPU than the custom Qualcomm Scorpion you are straight up retarded. The overall Hummingbird SoC was at one point in time better than the Qualcomm SoC's due to the inferior GPU, namely Adreno 200 and to an extent 205's nowadays the Adreno 220 smashes the PoverVR SGX540 and the shamefully weaker Mali 400 used in the Exynos..

              • D
              • AnonD-5197
              • qbY
              • 28 Apr 2011

              abhi, 27 Apr 2011Remember how much galaxy s2 was scoring in it's pre-product... moreWhat good is pre-production benchmark??? LOOOOOOL are you kidding me? Are you gonna be using pre-production phones? Consumers ONLY use the final products. You will never be able to benchmark a pre-production unit again.

              If you understand how licensing and how a company integrates their CPUs to their devices, you'll also understand why the scores are lower for Samsung's pre-production CPUs. Sensation is doing decent in pre-production because HTC bought Qualcomm's already completed CPU and built their hardware around it. Samsung on the other hand optimizes their CPU to their devices, removing anything unnecessary that might draw more currents or things that might slow the CPU down. Hence the huge improvement of benchmarking for SGSII and claiming #1 spot in the recently released performance report. Look em up they're not hard to find.

              Faster the processor more you sell? Show me some statistics on that! I'm willing to bet that Sony Arc with 1GHz single-core sales will beat some devices with dual-cores. Also, if benchmarking meant everything for customers, Apple's iPhone sales would NOT be that freaking high compared to other mobile device manufacturing companies. So tell me, how many people look at benchmarking when they purchase a phone? And what makes you think LG isn't capable of producing faster processors than Qualcomm?

              You haven't convinced anyone that Samsung CPUs can't compete in the market today, that LG made a bad move by choosing to manufacture their own, that LG would be selling more phones if they manufacture their phones with Qualcomm chips, and that they would earn them more money.

                • a
                • abhi
                • uv9
                • 27 Apr 2011

                AnonD-291, 27 Apr 2011"Qualcomm 1Ghz scored more than hummingbird" in w... moreAs I said earlier, leave out neocore. Even in other benchmaks qualcomms score better.

                  • a
                  • abhi
                  • uv9
                  • 27 Apr 2011

                  AnonD-5197, 27 Apr 2011lol, not much of a fanboy towards any particular company. I... moreRemember how much galaxy s2 was scoring in it's pre-production benchmarks ??? Poor for a dual core processor.
                  Considering that Sensation is doing well in it's very early benchmarks.
                  Morover getting quad core processors from nvidia or qualcomm would really benefit lg as this time they r very ahead in terms of providing advanced processors and this is the era of cut throat competition. The faster u r, the more u sell... and why wouldn't selling more a good thing for lg.

                    • D
                    • AnonD-291
                    • vGA
                    • 27 Apr 2011

                    abhi, 27 Apr 2011Lol...... it's quite apparent that u r really a big samsung... more"Qualcomm 1Ghz scored more than hummingbird" in what ??? Neocore ?? which was actually made by qualcomm for benchmarking snapdragons ? I couldnt be less surprised to see hummingbird score less fps than in platform which was exclusively made to benchmark snapdragon.

                    Exynos scores "only" 60 fps ? Thats because its capped to 60 fps, regardless of its android version.

                    Anyway do you know that your views that "samsung is behind, lacking" etc are based on just rumors ? Rumors can be complete Bullshit, like galaxy sII was previously rumored to come with 2 Ghz procesoors !!

                      • D
                      • AnonD-5197
                      • qbY
                      • 27 Apr 2011

                      abhi, 27 Apr 2011Lol...... it's quite apparent that u r really a big samsung... morelol, not much of a fanboy towards any particular company. I think you should drop your Qualcomm/HTC fanboyism in LG's CPU article.

                      I've been doing some more digging around and I've yet to find any source that says Snapdragons are better than Hummingbird. I've found many articles that say both chips perform at very competitive speeds.

                      Check this one out.
                      http://smartphonebenchmarks.com/forum/index.php?/topic/226-benchmarking-hummingbird-vs-qualcomm-2nd-gen-snapdragon-and-power-gsx540-vs-adreno-205-which-is-faster/

                      Also, found this article saying pre-production HTC Sensation getting beat by SGSII on benchmark. This is the response to your "Need more info ->" part. New Qualcomm chips coring really great on benchmarks? Maybe, but not beating Exynos yet. Maybe it will be different when it's released? We'll talk about it then.
                      http://www.dtmobilephones.com/other/htc/pre-production-version-htc-sensation-beaten-samsung-galaxy-ii-benchmarks-test-1048.html

                      Above articles should educate you that Qualcomm chips are better performing certain tasks over its competitors but other chips do better in other areas, unlike your biased opinion on how Qualcomm chips are WAAAAAAAYYYY better than Samsung's.

                      If you can convince me that those articles are BS with some sources backing your "opinion" of how Qualcomm processors are waaaaaaayyyyy better than Samsung's, then I'll stop thinking that you are so ignorant.

                      Having said all that, Samsung had impressively successful past few years with their devices. I can confidently say that the processors alone did not bring success for them. Benchmark did not bring them success for Samsung. In fact, benchmark is only slightly relevant to how the device does in the market. Take a look at iPhone. It doesn't score too high compared to other powerhouse devices, but it beats the hell out of its competition in terms of sales. Taking all that into consideration, how would adopting Nvidia's 1.5GHz quad-core benefit LG? How would adopting 2.5GHz from another company benefit them? What makes you think LG is unable to produce a chip that is better than competition? When CLEARLY Samsung chips are very competitive in the market, how is it obvious that LG chips will not be competitive?

                        • a
                        • abhi
                        • uvb
                        • 27 Apr 2011

                        Anonymous, 27 Apr 2011the fps is capped by software on the samsung handsets , unc... moreNot only samsung, other company phones r also capped by software.
                        Sony ericsson Xperia x10 was capped at 30 fps but with the newest 2.3 custom rom it's been uncapped.

                          • a
                          • abhi
                          • uvb
                          • 27 Apr 2011

                          chris, 27 Apr 2011"Lol...... it's quite apparent that u r really a big s... moreLeave out neocore... In every other benchmark too galaxy s scores less.
                          Morover why only desire s, why not compare it with other qualcomm based phones which perform amazingly.
                          And that was last yr, for a small period of time last yr, indeed galaxy s sat on top in terms of performance but this yr the gap between samsung and other companies has ended now if same goes on than soon other companies r gonna overtake samsung.

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • MQK
                            • 27 Apr 2011

                            chris, 27 Apr 2011"Lol...... it's quite apparent that u r really a big s... morethe fps is capped by software on the samsung handsets , uncapped they are much faster

                              • c
                              • corps
                              • YT8
                              • 27 Apr 2011

                              waiting for a 5 GHz pentacore and 7.5 GHz octa-core.

                                • A
                                • ASK
                                • MEE
                                • 27 Apr 2011

                                abhi, 27 Apr 2011There is nothing like special customization for ur own spec... moreWow!! really?
                                Are you aware what ARM sells in an architecture and not the processors themselves? Qualcomm / nVidia / Samsung buy licenses to these designs and manufacture their own chips which may have differences in design compared to the ARM design. (eg: Both Apple and Samsung USE the ARM design for their phones but they also hired a company (Intrinsity -Now owned by Apple) to optimise the hardware design based on domino logic (read it up)!. So what LG did for Optimus 2X is BUY the chips directly from nVidia while samsung MADE their own chips. LG will now try to develop their own chip which 'may' give them design advantages and will certainly make it more profitable for them (not paying nVidia).. potentially a good scenario for LG (however risks falling behind competition if they are not able to bring out a marketable design in time)...

                                So please... stop your ignorant fanboyism. User XP is what matters.. and hopefully both Samsung & LG dual cores are delivering on that front. If you want to believe in benchmarks alone (I dont) you can search for Eldar Murtazin's review where Samsung Galaxy S2 blows everything out of the water with a 3000+ Quadrant score! (Does that automatically make it the best phone? Absolutely not.There are more things in play here than a Quadrant score or a Neocore benchmark. But if you follow your logic thats what YOU should believe!) Strange indeed!

                                  • c
                                  • chris
                                  • ms3
                                  • 27 Apr 2011

                                  abhi, 27 Apr 2011Lol...... it's quite apparent that u r really a big samsung... more"Lol...... it's quite apparent that u r really a big samsung fan.
                                  Qualcomms r actually better than samsung processors.
                                  Qualcomm 1Ghz processors have always scored upto 65 fps in benchmarks while hummingbird is just stuck on 55 fps. And If hummingbird was so good than why did samsung galaxy s lags like hell.
                                  Even the new exynos processor can't compete with tegra 2 and OMAP4 in terms of gaming performance. Exynos(dual core) scored just abt 60 fps in neocore. Isn't that just pathetic for a dual core processor ??? "


                                  Neocore was made for benchmarking Qualcomm's processors. Even so, Hummingbird scored higher than any other phone manufactured last year.
                                  Look at HTC Desire - it's performance compared with SGS it's pathetic.

                                  Galaxy S lags because of the FileSystem chosen by Samsung (RFS - aka piece of crap - FAT journalized)

                                    • a
                                    • abhi
                                    • uvb
                                    • 27 Apr 2011

                                    AnonD-5197, 27 Apr 2011What I found through bit of researching is that Qualcomm ch... moreThere is nothing like special customization for ur own specific company.
                                    Processors r customized only for operating system like android, iOS, WP7 etc. They r not customized for touch wiz, timescape/mediascape or sense ui. So, even if one company purchases processors from other companies it's not going to affect their phone's performance and companies making processors for their own phones r not going to have any benefit.

                                      • a
                                      • abhi
                                      • uvb
                                      • 27 Apr 2011

                                      AnonD-291, 27 Apr 2011"Samsung said that around *end of 2012* they will show... moreDidn't u hear that qualcomm 1.5 Ghz dual core processors r already out ??? It's only abt time when a qualcomm 1.5 Ghz dual core processor based phone will be out.
                                      Morover, I don't remember the site where it was mentioned that 'in end of 2012' but whatever be the case, samsung 2 Ghz dual core is meant for 2012 in Q2 or Q3. But Qualcomm 1.5 Ghz Quad core processors r gonna be released in Q3-Q4 of this yr. So, it clearly puts them much ahead of samsung and Nvidia Tegra 3 logo has already been leaked which is scheduled to be released in Q3 of this yr. So I guess both nvidia and qualcomm r quite ahead of samsung. Isn't it ???

                                        • a
                                        • abhi
                                        • uvb
                                        • 27 Apr 2011

                                        AnonD-5197, 26 Apr 2011What clearly shows Samsung is lacking? Samsung is first to... more"They r ahead in competition" really ???
                                        Qualcomms 1.5 Ghz dual core processors r already available. Now it depends on mobile companies, when they will use them.