ARM plans additions to Cortex processor cores

LONDON: ARM Holdings, based in Cambridge, England, is planning 3 additions to its Cortex family of processor cores in 2010.

These cores – codenamed Eagle, Heron and Merlin – have lead licensing customers, and deliveries of intellectual property will begin either in 2010 or in early in 2011 depending on the core, according to Warren East, chief executive officer of ARM Holdings.

While Eagle comes within the high-performance Cortex A-class, Heron is within the embedded and real-time Cortex R-class, and Merlin is a new core for the Cortex-M grouping of ARM Holdings.

Warren East said in a statement that, in general, the 3 new processor cores will offer different, rather than better, performance and attributes to the established Cortex processor cores.

Though all the 3 processor cores will sit alongside the existing products for some time to come, Eagle will surpass the Cortex-A9 as the most powerful processor core of ARM, according to Warren East.

ARM Holdings has announced Cortex-A9 as a design-in within the Tegra-2 processor from Nvidia Corporation. Marvell Technology Group Limited, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, the United States, has claimed a 4-core implementation of the Cortex-A9.

Warren East said that Eagle is intended for smartphone, digital television, mobile computing, and communications infrastructure applications.

While the processor core Heron is aimed at the automotive engine management, basebands, and hard disk drive control, the Merlin core targets motor control, embedded audio processing and industrial control.