ARM: more 64-bit processors in smartphones coming soon

More 64-bit processors will soon be in smartphones and tablets. So says ARM, the company behind the processor architecture of the same name. Manufacturers are getting started with 64-bit processors faster than expected.

While ARM previously expected that the 64-bit version of the ARM architecture would initially only be used in servers, for example, companies such as Qualcomm, Marvell and MediaTek have enthusiastically started working with 64-bit socs and are coming quickly to the market. with many processors based on the 64-bit ARMv8 architecture, the company says in a commentary on its quarterly figures. Smartphones would also be able to run unconverted 32-bit code faster with a 64-bit processor because of the updates in the architecture.

To date, ARM has issued forty licenses to use the ARMv8 architecture, five licenses were added in the past quarter to reach that number, although only one of those five was a license for a mobile device manufacturer; the remaining four were for network, hpc and automotive applications.

Many of those socs have already been presented: Qualcomm has presented the Snapdragon 808, 810, 610 and 410, among others, all on ARM’s Cortex A53 microarchitecture; with the 810 and 808 the Cortex A53 cores are coupled to Cortex A57 cores. MediaTek has also presented its first 64bit soc.

Although ARM doesn’t say so, it is obvious that the acceleration in the development of 64-bit socs for smartphones is due to Apple. To the surprise of many other companies, the iPhone 5s turned out to be the first smartphone to have an ARM 64bit soc on board in September, something that Apple emphasized during the presentation. The first Android phones with 64-bit socs are expected to appear this fall.