Mobile CPU Clarity(Update 1)

Ever wonder why the Storm or iPhone 3G run relatively slow to more modern competition?   Want an easy way to compare current smartphone offerings? Here’s a cross-reference of a few smartphones, their CPUs, and the application processor core(s) used within them.  Keep in mind that most modern SoC(system-on-chip) CPUs integrate multiple dissimilar cores on the same die, but since general application performance is mostly determined by the application or general-purpose processor core, that’s all I’ve included below.  Other sites may state a different speed for each phone below but most phone manufacturers will underclock a CPU for power conservation.  Hence, only actual speeds are stated.  In general you will only see ARM 11 or Cortex A8 cores but since ARM licenses their microarchitecture to manufacturers, a cross reference sheet like the one below will allow you to know what application processor core is actually being used.  Columns for RAM and manufacturing process size were only included as respective ancillaries of application performance and energy efficiency.  While it’s obvious that all modern smartphones use the Cortex A8, I’m really looking forward to Cortex multi-core processors, namely the Cortex A9 in 2010.  As a side note, the introduction of multi-core Cortex-based application processors should provide a good foundation for Apple to finally allow concurrently running applications on the iPhone.

Phone	CPU	App. Proc. Core	Actual Speed	Element Size
Motorola Droid	TI OMAP 3430	ARM Cortex A8	550Mhz	65nm
Palm Pre	TI OMAP 3430	ARM Cortex A8	500Mhz	65nm
Apple iPhone 3GS	Samsung S5PC100	ARM Cortex A8	600Mhz	65nm
Apple iPhone 3G	Samsung S3C6400	ARM 11	412Mhz	90nm
Blackberry Bold (II) 9700	Marvell PXA930	ARM 11	624Mhz	65nm
Blackberry Storm	Qualcomm MSM7600	ARM 11 + ARM 9	400 + 274Mhz	90nm
Nokia N900	TI OMAP 3430	ARM Cortex A8	600Mhz	65nm
Acer Liquid A1	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250	ARM Cortex A8	768Mhz	65nm

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