ARM Cortex-A12 CPU & Mali-T622 GPU Aim At 580 Million Mid-Range Devices

The budget-restrained techies have got something really exciting to look forward to. ARM, the mobile processor design giant, is foraying into the mid-range smartphone segment where they've kept a selling target of 580 million devices by 2015. To tone up that segment of $250-$350 prized smarts, the company is developing the ARM Cortex-A12 CPU design that houses future chips to look after your processing requirements while ARM Mali-622 GPU and ARM Mali-V500 video processor shall cater to your graphic needs.

The basic aim for designing these chips into the mid-range devices is to expand all content creation work like video editing, adding special effects creation in photographs, etc in the budget-friendly segment as well. Not only these, but features like natural language processing, handwriting recognition and hardware-based security that's presently enjoyed on high-end models shall be making its way in mid-range too, thus offering the best of both worlds to the customer.


The mid-range chips shall be so designed that they'll also offer a better display pixel resolution, better battery life, better camera quality, increased storage and memory plus additional sophisticated technology. And Cortex A-12's energy-efficient tag makes it the most obvious choice for its inclusion in mid-range smartphones. With support from ARM POP technology and the ARM Development Studio 5 toolchain, ARM partners can deliver smartphones and tablets with higher efficiency and reduced time to market. According to ARM, Cortex-A12 CPU gives 40% better performance as compared to Cortex-A9, while the ARM Mali-T622 GPU is smaller and 50% more energy efficient than Mali-T600 series graphics chips. Mali-V500 video processor supports HD (1080p) processing and is the first ARM design ever to support TrustZone secure video, which offers anti-piracy benefits to video distributors, and disallows protected videos to be decoded/streamed on phone. The chips are expected to be incorporated into mobile devices mid-2014 onwards.

With the power in their hands to be backing the 580 million mid-range mobile devices over the next two years, while keeping in mind the fact that the mid-range market is projected to exceed the number of premium smartphones and tablets beginning in 2015, ARM Architecture is sure taking steps in the right direction. And for the consumers who don't care about flagship devices and are willing to wait till mid 2014, this news could definitely mean something significant. What say you?