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ARM and TSMC Celebrate Big.Little on FinFET

The results of a silicon validation of ARM’s Big.Little chip architecture, showing performance improvements, have been announced. The validation used ‘Big’ Cortex-A57 and ‘Little’ Cortex-A53 processors on TSMC’s 16nm FinFET (16FF) process technology. The ‘Big’ core reached 2.3GHz for sustained mobile peak performance and the ‘Little’ core was shown to consume just 75mW for ‘most … Read more

Samsung Keeps 14nm Details Close to Chest

A 14nm FinFET device was shown by Samsung at ARM TechCon earlier this month. While the company was not sharing any information about the chip, a mobile application processor was shown decoding HD video on a handset and a TV at the same time. According to Samsung, the 14nm process is fully qualified and in … Read more

iPhone Priority Pushes Back iPad Pro

The Wall Street Journal says that production of Apple’s 12.9″ iPad Pro has been delayed. Difficulties producing enough new iPhones to meet demand will apparently delay the tablet. Mass-production was scheduled for December (Bloomberg claimed earlier this year (Display Monitor Vol 21 No 34) that the tablet would reach the market in early 2015).

TI Power Chip for Wearables is Wireless

Texas Instruments (TI) has announced a number of devices addressing the power requirements of mobile and wearable devices. As nice as some of these new gadgets are, they still need power to run. The BQ25100, BQ25100H, and BQ25101 are linear chargers for Li-Ion and Li- polymer batteries with a wide range of input voltage and … Read more

Battery Technology Must Change, ABI Urges

The eight billion mobile devices – including smart- and feature phones, wearables, tablets and notebooks – in the world by 2019 will provide a huge base for new battery and charging technologies, says ABI Research. Battery and charging technologies have lagged behind other developments in the mobile space, says ABI’s Nick Spencer. He added, “Short … Read more

‘FingerShadow’ Saves OLED Power

A paper published by Microsoft Research (http://tinyurl.com/nqvq736) has shown a new way to conserve power on mobile devices. Recognising that the screen is the most power-hungry component in a smartphone, Microsoft researchers have developed a method called ‘FingerShadow’ to reduce power-draw. Utilising local dimming, the system darkens areas of the screen that are covered by … Read more