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The 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon and Samsung Hummingbird processors that are showing up in smartphones, tablets, and smartbooks are already pretty speedy. But the folks at GlobalFoundries are promising to build much faster low-power chips. The company launched the first 28nm ARM Cortex-A9 processor platform this week, allowing the ARM-based chips to take up less space and use less energy. Globalfoundries also says that production is scheduled to begin on 2GHz and faster chips in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Of course, if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that GHz are just numbers. You can’t always judge a CPU based on its clock speed. That said, smaller, more energy efficient chips will lead to phones, tablets, and other devices with better battery life, thinner sizes, and hopefully better performance.
