Chipset manufacturers and designers are all aiming to lower the lithographic process of mobile SoCs in order to increase performance and energy efficiency. ARM is the latest firm to have joined that club and according to the information posted on Weibo, the company's Cortex lineup of processors is going to be fabricated on the 10 and 16 nm lithographic process. No doubt, the company's Cortex-A72 is going to deliver impressive processing performance, including the ability to record 4K videos at 120 FPS, but there are other chips that are going to be placed in entry- and mid-ranged smartphones.
The upcoming processor designs possess the following codenames:
- Ares
- Prometheus
- Artemis
- Ananke
- Mercury
In the future, Cortex-A72 will be replaced by Ares, which is going to be processed on the 10 nm architecture, and will have a maximum power consumption of 1-1.2 watt per core. Such a high power consumption metric will have a deleterious effect on smartphones and their overall battery life, which is why these chips are going to be targeted to the server and tablet market.
Cortex-A57 will be replaced by Prometheus, which will also be processed on the 10 nm process, but will be running at a lowered power consumption compared to Ares (600-750 mW per core). The lowered power consumption is enough for the chips to be incorporated into flagship smartphones and tablets.
Next up is Artemis, which is going to replace parts of Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A17 but is going to be processed on the 16 nm architecture.
Ananke and Mercury are going to be incorporated into entry- and mid-ranged smartphones, since they have a low power consumption metric of 100-250 mW and 50-150 mW respectively. They will replace Cortex-A53 parts, along with Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A5.
ARM has not given word on when it plans to officially launch the new iteration of processors, but 2016 is reportedly the proposed timeline.
