Intel releases Atom Z-soc for smartphones with higher clock speeds

Intel has released the Atom Z3590 for smartphones and tablets. The soc contains Silvermont cores and is still produced at 22nm, but Intel has increased both the gpu and cpu clock speeds for better performance.

Until recently, the Z3580 from 2014 was the fastest soc in the Z series, but Intel has released a more powerful model with the Z3590. The maximum GPU clock speed of the PowerVR G6430 of the Atom Z3590 is 640MHz, where that is 533MHz for the Z3580. The maximum burst clock rate on the new model is 2.5GHz, while the Z3580 clocks up to 2.33GHz.

The other specifications have remained the same. It is still a soc with Silvermont cores produced at 22nm that supports 2MB L2 cache and up to 4GB lpddr3. Despite the higher clock speeds, it is still a chip for midrange smartphones and tablets.

Intel is working on a high-end processor for smartphones, the Broxton soc that will be produced at 14nm, but it will not be released until 2016. Intel is still struggling to gain a foothold in the smartphone market, where ARM is commonplace.