Five 64-bit smartphone processors to watch out for this year

**MWC 2014** helped usher in a slew of spanking new smartphones from all major vendors. Most of them were flagship phones aimed at replacing last year’s high-end models. While these devices provide a good incremental update and help shift the market price of existing devices, the best is yet to come. Most of the devices announced simply featured slightly updated features and perhaps faster internals thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 SoC, but not much else.   When it comes to smartphone chipsets 64-bit is clearly the buzz word and after Apple set the ball rolling last year with the world’s first 64-bit mobile SoC in the 5s, it was inevitable that the Android camp will follow suit. The following five SoCs will play a key role in upcoming smartphones this year and will be the go-to chipsets for any OEM looking to build a 64-bit smartphone. But before we dive in to what they are, here’s a quick primer on why 64-bit is going to be such a big deal in the smartphone space, going ahead.   ARMv8-A at the heart of it all Except for Intel, all other SoC manufacturers will base their chipset deigns on the ARMv8-A architecture. This new design adds 64-bit support while still being compatible with existing 32-bit instruction sets. Besides this, the main focus of this architecture is improving on low power consumption states which allow vendors to add more cores without hampering battery life. [caption id=“attachment_219585” align=“alignnone” width=“779”] The progression from the first ARM architecture to where we are now[/caption]   ARM currently has two processors that use the ARMv8-A architecture – Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57. These are ready-to-go processors that SoC makers can simply plop into their chipsets. Either this or they also have the option to take the ARMv8-A design and create a CPU in their image (eg. Qualcomm’s Krait CPUs in the Snapdragon chipsets).  For now, it seems like most chipset makers will be using the processors directly from ARM but we could see custom 64-bit designs later in the future.   So, why 64-bit? Well, the biggest advantage is of course support for more than 4GB memory (or RAM). Samsung is already adding 3GB of RAM in its flagship devices and as apps get more and more like desktop applications, doubling the bandwidth for memory addressing will help remove the bottleneck. However, just having 64-bit support means squat, if you don’t have the proper support from the OS and apps. Android, even in its latest avatar (KitKat) does not support 64-bit natively, but that update is coming soon. Another advantage of 64-bit is that the Operating System can fetch mode data per CPU cycle, which can boost performance significantly in heavily skinned versions of Android.   Here’s a quick look at the five SoCs that we’ll be seeing a lot of in the months to come.   **Qualcomm Snapdragon 610 and 615** These two chipsets join the Snapdragon 410 SoC which was announced a while back, to be one of the first 64-bit chipsets from Qualcomm. The 410 will soon replace the Snapdragon 400 SoC, that’s currently found in handsets like the Moto G, Galaxy Grand 2, etc and will focus on the mainstream segment. The new Snapdragon 610 and 615 chipsets are similarly spec’d expect that the former is a quad-core chipset and the latter is an octa-core chipset. [caption id=“attachment_219589” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The new Snapdragon SoCs announced at MWC[/caption]   The new chips use ARM’s Cortex-A53 cores and will feature an Adreno 405 GPU. The new GPU is part of the Adreno 400 series which is currently reserved for the premium Snapdragon 800 SoCs. Both chipsets will feature global LTE bands supporting Category 4 data rates, Wi-Fi ‘ac’, NFC , GLONASS and the lot. These chipsets will target the upper mid-range phones sitting in the Rs 25,000 – Rs 35,000 price bracket.   **Nvidia Tegra K1** If you thought Tegra 4 had crazy graphics power for games, Nvidia’s newly unveiled Tegra K1 is a different beast altogether. This is not a mere incremental update to Tegra 4 as K1 will debut Nvidia’s first ever, home-grown CPU – codenamed Project Denver. The CPU has been in the works for almost five years now and is based on ARM’s v8-A architecture. The K1 SoC will have two variants, one with a Cortex-A15 CPU running at 2.3GHz and later, a dual-core, Denver-based CPU with 64-bit support. The latter has the ability to scale all the way up to 2.5GHz. [caption id=“attachment_219588” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] OEM’s will be able to choose between two variants of the K1 SoC[/caption]   The biggest advancement however is the inclusion of a Kepler-based GPU with a staggering 192 shaders. Yes, that’s the same architecture that gave us the GTX Titan and GTX 780 Ti on the desktop. Eventually, Nvidia plans to replace Kepler with a Maxwell GPU, their first GPU designed with the mobile platform in mind, which gave birth to the GTX 750 Ti. Hopefully, we get to see a lot more devices based on the K1 than we did with Tegra 4.   **Intel Atom 'Merrifield' Z3480** Intel might be lagging behind a bit on the SoC front but they haven’t given up yet. At MWC, the software giant unveiled their latest Atom Z3480 CPU based on the new Silvermont architecture. In addition to improvements in battery life and faster compute capabilities, Intel also announced their XMM 7160 LTE modem, which will accompany the new ‘Merrifield’ SoC. We can expect this new chipset to debut in Asus’s Fonepad refresh or a XOLO tablet, before it makes its way into phones. [caption id=“attachment_219586” align=“alignnone” width=“845”] A direct comparison between Merrifield and Intel’s outgoing architecture[/caption]   **Mediatek MT6732** The mainstream smartphone segment is already swarming with phones sporting the latest MediaTek octa-core SoC and very soon, the MT6732 will be joining the ranks. The new chipset is based on the ARMv8-A architecture and features four Cortex-A53 CPUs capable of running up to 1.5GHz. It will also sport the new Mali-T760 GPU. Being a MediaTek chipset, expect to see this in handsets around the Rs 20,000 mark.   Marvell Armada Mobile PXA 1928 Marvell hasn’t really been very active when it comes to SoCs but all that could change with their new Armada Mobile PXA 1928 chipset. This 64-bit chip boasts of four Cortex A-53 CPUs and a 5-mode LTE modem. Of course, there’s support for Wi-Fi ‘ac’ NFC, GLONASS and all the other connectivity options we’ve taken for granted. [caption id=“attachment_219587” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Marvell has been absent for the most part so far but 2014 could be their year[/caption]   All this is great but what about software? The 64-bit instruction sets in the aforementioned SoCs are useless unless we have 64-bit software to harness the power. Android currently only supports 32-bit instruction sets, even in the latest KitKat version. Intel on the hand is already ahead of the curve as it has finished work on a 64-bit version of KitKat and will soon be releasing it in the second half of this year through its device partners. For the rest of the chipmakers who follow ARM’s design, they’ll probably have to wait for the next version of KitKat from Google with native 64-bit support. Samsung is also silently preparing its own 64-bit Exynos SoC which most likely, will debut with the Galaxy Note 4.   The announcements at CES and MWC were just a teaser of what’s to come. Rather the massive screen sizes crammed to the gill with pixels, the focus will be mostly on rolling out phones with global LTE basebands and of course, 64-bit capable chipsets. The hardware is in place and it’s up to Google to fit the final piece of the puzzle.