Samsung Tapes Out 1 Gigahertz+ ARM Cortex-A15 SoC

Synopsis, a design automation company, said that the processor runs "at operating speeds in excess of a gigahertz" and was manufactured in a 32 nm process using high-K metal gate technology.

"Our mission is to deliver the highest frequency while minimizing power for high-end processor and graphics cores targeted to the mobile computing and digital home markets," said Keith Hawkins, vice president at Samsung's Austin Research Center. "Globally, this was the first production tapeout of a Cortex-A15 processor and we relied exclusively on IC Compiler and the Galaxy tool suite to predictably achieve our performance and power targets."

According to ARM, the Cortex-A15 architecture supports clock speeds of 1 to 1.5 GHz for smartphones in single- and dual-core configurations, while set-top boxes could be scaled to 2 GHz quad-core versions, servers to 2.5 GHz quad-core processors and wireless infrastructure devices could use eight "or more" cores down the road.

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Douglas Perry was a freelance writer for Tom's Hardware covering semiconductors, storage technology, quantum computing, and processor power delivery. He has authored several books and is currently an editor for The Oregonian/OregonLive.