Symbian first to deliver ARM Cortex-A8 technology for smartphones

Symbian OS is fully scalable across all ARM processor architectures, enabling record performance levels for smartphones

CTIA Wireless, ORLANDO, FL and London, UK – 26 March 2007 – Symbian Ltd. today announced that Symbian OS™, the market-leading open operating system for smartphones, is the first mobile OS to support the new ARM® Cortex™-A8 processor currently running on Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) OMAP3430 application processor. The technology enables significantly higher Symbian smartphone performance whilst maintaining greater power efficiency and lowering development costs for handset manufacturers.

Symbian OS is also the first mobile OS to be fully scalable across all ARM processor architectures from the ARM Cortex-A8 processor, through mainstream ARM11™ family of processors, to cost-effective ARM9™ family of processors. The ARM Cortex-A8 processor, which is based on ARM v7 architecture, is the highest performance most power-efficient applications processor developed by ARM to date and is designed to enrich mobile phones with applications that formerly required the consumption levels of a PC.  

"Symbian continues to be at the forefront of enabling next generation processor technology and is the first to commercialize a cutting-edge mobile phone solution based on this latest generation of ARM processors,” said Jørgen Behrens, executive vice president, marketing, Symbian. “This announcement provides further evidence that the intensive R&D collaboration between Symbian, ARM and TI continues to drive innovation in mobile technology. This platform development ensures Symbian smartphones have even higher performance levels, enabling the richest application experiences on mobile phones."

“The ARM Cortex-A8 processor-based Symbian OS solution running on the new TI OMAP3430 processor brings desktop levels of performance to low-cost, high-volume smartphones for the first time – delivering up to three times the performance of today’s highest performance handsets,” said Mike Inglis, executive vice president, sales and marketing, ARM.  “Symbian’s expert use of ARM tools and our established partnership has resulted in some of the most innovative technologies for the mobile market today. We look forward to working further with Symbian and continuing to develop innovative new ways to enhance ground-breaking Symbian smartphone performance.”

The ARM Cortex-A8 processor-based Symbian OS solution runs on the new TI OMAP3430 applications processor,  the first applications processor in 65nm technology, delivering faster user interfaces and data access, while boosting productivity and entertainment applications and maintaining power efficiencies expected in a handset. The compatibility of Symbian OS v9 and the ARMv7 architecture enabled TI to quickly and easily port existing code onto the new OMAP3430 processor, demonstrating reduction in cost and delivery time to market.

“We are very pleased to continue our longstanding relationship with Symbian and ARM. The flexibility of Symbian OS combined with the performance of the ARM Cortex-A8 processor and market-leading OMAP 3 architecture in 65 nm are driving powerful smartphone solutions,” said Richard Kerslake, worldwide general manager, 3G and OMAP business, Texas Instruments.

Available on the latest versions of Symbian OS including Symbian OS v9.5 also announced today.  With over 110 million Symbian smartphones shipped and over 70% share of the smartphone market, Symbian is committed to providing the world’s leading handset vendors with the most competitive mobile operating system to meet the demands of the mass market and the rich experiences of tomorrow’s smartphone lifestyle.

Further information of the ARM Cortex-A8 processor integrated with the TI OMAP3430 is available here.

 

About Symbian Limited

Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones known as smartphones.

Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world’s leading handset manufacturers and has built close co-operative business relationships with leading companies across the mobile industry.  During 2006, 51.7 million Symbian smartphones were sold worldwide to over 250 major network operators, bringing the total number of Symbian smartphones shipped up to 31 December 2006 to 110 million.

Symbian has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom and overseas offices in India, Japan, Korea, People’s Republic of China and the United States. For more information, please visit www.symbian.com and www.symbian.com/about/fastfacts/fastfacts

 

Media Enquiries

Global Press Office Symbian Ltd +44 207 154 1000 press@symbian.com	Europe Aleks Vujanic Burson-Marsteller UK +44 20 7300 6299 symbian_pressuk@uk.bm.com
US Valerie Breslow Breslow Communications +1 858 337 4217 valbreslow@earthlink.net	Japan Hiroko Tanaka Burson-Marsteller Japan +81 3 3264 6727 symbian_pr@jp.bm.com

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