Samsung Ups Ante with Orion 1GHz Dual Core Arm Cortex-A9

There may still be some confusion over the pricing of Samsung’s first Galaxy Tab, but there’s no confusion that Samsung is planning ahead for the second wave of Galaxy Tabs. Xavier reported earlier today what many are saying about the $799 price tag for the Galaxy Tab, and the Wall St. Journal is reporting that with a carrier subsidy we might see a price between $200 and $300. It is still to early to slap a price tag there obviously, but maybe the press release Samsung issued on its next wave offers some hints.

According to the press release (below) Samsung will be releasing “to select customers” its 1GHz Orion Dual Core Arm Cortex-A9 chip for mobile devices in Q1 of 2011. Promising “5 times the 3D graphics performance” as well as 1080p video encoding and decoding at 30fps, embedded GPS, a native triple display controller, and on-chip HDMI 1.3a interface, the new chipset will apparently let you run two onboard displays simultaneously while pumping video to a 3rd device. Two versions will be available, one with memory and one without.

Expect to see this in those future Galaxy Tabs that Samsung is talking about, as well as other mobile devices next year sometime.

About those hints? I’m guessing the first Galaxy Tab is Samsung’s opening Salvo to see how consumers respond, what they want, and what they don’t want. It is tough to price Beta hardware, when you know you’ve got something better coming along.

Press Release follows:

Samsung Introduces High Performance, Low Power Dual CORTEXTM – A9 Application Processor for Mobile Devices

TAIPEI, Taiwan–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, today introduced its new 1GHz ARM® CORTEXTM A9-based dual-core application processor, codenamed Orion, for advanced mobile applications. Device OEM developers now have a powerful dual processor chip platform designed specifically to meet the needs of high-performance, low-power mobile applications including tablets, netbooks and smartphones. Samsung’s new processor will be demonstrated at the seventh annual Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum held here in Taiwan at the Westin Taipei Hotel.

“Consumers are demanding the full web experience without compromise while on the go,” said Dojun Rhee, vice president of Marketing, System LSI Division, Samsung Electronics. “Given this trend, mobile device designers need an application processor platform that delivers superb multimedia performance, fast CPU processing speed, and abundant memory bandwidth. Samsung’s newest dual core application processor chip is designed specifically to fulfill such stringent performance requirements while maintaining long battery life.”

Designed using Samsung’s 45 nanometer low-power process technology, Orion features a pair of 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 cores, each comes with a 32KB data cache and a 32KB instruction cache. Samsung also included a 1MB L2 cache to optimize CPU processing performance and provide fast context switching in a multi-tasking environment. In addition, the memory interface and bus architecture of Orion supports data intensive multimedia applications including full HD video playback and high speed 3D action games.

Samsung’s new application processor incorporates a rich portfolio of advanced multimedia features implemented by hardware accelerators, such as video encoder/decoder that supports 30fps video playback and recording at 1080P full HD resolution. Using an enhanced graphics processing unit (GPU), the new processors are capable of delivering 5 times the 3D graphics performance over the previous processor generation from Samsung.

For design flexibility and system BOM cost reduction, Orion integrates a set of interfaces commonly used in mobile devices to configure various peripheral functionalities. For example, with this processor, customers have the choice to use different types of storage including NAND flash, moviNANDTM, SSD or HDD providing both SATA, and eMMC interfaces. Customers can also choose their appropriate memory options including low power LPDDR2 or DDR3, which is commonly used for high performance. In addition, a global positioning system (GPS) receiver baseband processor is embedded in the processor to seamlessly support location based services (LBS), which is critical in many emerging mobile applications.

Orion features an onboard native triple display controller architecture that compliments multi-tasking operations in a multiple display environment. A mobile device using the Orion processor can simultaneously support two on-device display screens, while driving a third external display such as a TV or a monitor, via an on-chip HDMI 1.3a interface.

Orion is designed to support package-on-package (POP) with memory stacking to reduce the footprint. A derivative of Orion, which is housed in a standalone package with a 0.8mm ball pitch, is also available.

Samsung’s new dual-core application processor, Orion, will be available to select customers in the fourth quarter of 2010 and is scheduled for mass production in the first half of 2011.