We are hearing that the latest buzzword on smartphones is dual processor, but what does dual processor mean and what will it do to improve user experience?
Dual core processors (which are really system on chip) are essentially the equivalent of having two processors on board your smartphone. When a phone manufacturer specifies phones such as the Samsungs Galaxy S II as having a 1.2 GHz dual core processor, what they are saying is that the phone has the equivalent of two processors both with an operating speed of 1.2 GHz. In simple terms, if you double the processors you double the smartphone’s performance.
In reality it is not quite as simple as that because there are overhead requirements that are needed to keep everything working harmoniously, and this reduces the available computing power, but dual core provides a substantial increase in overall performance.
Although these phones have much more to offer than there single core counterparts, the improvements should be considered as being evolutionary rather than revolutionary. We are seeing a real increase in performance, but we are not experiencing a quantum leap from the smartphone to the superphone, not yet anyway.
What this advance does demonstrate and demonstrate very clearly is that what is known as “Moore’s Law” is still in the ascendant. Moore’s Law (called after GE Moore, one of the founders of Intel) says that every about 2 years we see a doubling of computer power. Looking at the kind of computing power that we find in high end computers, just a few years ago we were marvelling at 6 and 7 core processors, now just two year on we are seeing 10 and 16 core processors emerge.
So, following Moore’s Law for smartphones, can we expect to see quad-core processors emerge within the next two years and maybe 16 core processors by 2015?
The key to packing progressively more power into smartphones is power management. There are two constraints: the power that is available, i.e. the battery; and the heat that is generated by the chip. The latest developments have been achieved by managing these, and we are likely to see more of the same in the future.
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