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Samsung introduces ARM-based smartphone chip

Puts codec on chip to handle motion video processing and 3D graphics, freeing up main processor for other tasks and speeding overall performance.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers

Samsung Electronics introduced a new ARM-based processor for smartphones at Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona, Spain. The S3C6410 "mobile application processor" includes special hardware accelerators to handle motion video processing and 3D graphics, thereby freeing up the main processor for other tasks and speeding overall performance.

Samsung S3C6400 processor.
Samsung S3C6400 processor Samsung Semiconductor

At the heart of the S3C6410 is an ARM1176 processor core that can be clocked up to 667MHz. The chip is made on Samsung's advanced 65-nanometer manufacturing process.

By embedding a hardwired Multi Format Codec on-chip, the S3C6410 can perform video capture in MPEG4/H.263/H.264 formats and replay in MPEG4/H.263/H.264/VC1 formats using much less power, thereby giving consumers longer video playback time with a standard size battery, Samsung said. The hardwired codec offers standard-definition quality video capture and playback at 30fps, as well as supports two-way real-time video conferencing.

The S3C6410 processor supports all major operating systems, including Windows Mobile, Linux, and Symbian OSTM. The S3C6410 processor is expected to be available in sample quantities in May, with mass production scheduled for the third quarter of 2008.