Smartphones Processors : Overview

Processor For Smartphones

Now a days , there are plenty of Smartphones available of different Configuration and Specifications. One of the main feature to consider before buying a Smartphone is its Processor. This is from Consumer point of view. Well ,this post will explain what basically processors are , their types and other internal details.

Nick Stam , the Director of technical marketing at NVIDEA has rightly said “Processor are the brain of Smartphones” . Just like Processors in PC/Laptop that is capable of doing Calculations , multitasking at a very fast rate , a smartphone’s processor must be able to do the same easily. Smartphones are also known as High end devices and Processors / Cpu inside them are also known as System on a Chip.

Processor Cores : The more is better

Earlier Smartphones came with Single core processors , then came Dual Core processor , followed by Qual Core , Octa Core and higher core versions are expected soon. Earlier Smartphones have Single Core processors that do the task single handedly (have Single CPU), but with the help of more than single core the task gets divided into several cores and thereby helps in achieving more Processing rate or fast execution of Processor. Thu Core helps in splitting the tasks and hence Speed or Execution time is directly proportional to number of Cores. These days Smartphones are available with Quad Core CPU’s as well as Octa Core Smartphones are available too. Popular Samsung Galaxy S4 is powered by Exynos Octa Core Chip.

Clock Rate:

Not all the Processors are equal , Clock rate is also an important factor to be considered as performance is directly proportional with Clock rate. Its unit is Hertz , same as that of frequency and Smartphones normally have Clock rate in Gigahertz. The more the Clock rate a Processor have , more fast it will be. For example , if a smartphone has 1 Ghz Clock rate while another smartphone has 2 Ghz Clock rate. The Second one will be able to execute faster as crystal in second smartphone will oscillate with twice the frequency of first one.

What are GPU’s ?

GPU stands for Graphics Processing Unit. As high end devices are often used for Gaming Purposes , various types of GPU’s Chips are essential components of Smartphones. Thus like CPU forms the brain of Smartphones , GPU’s are considered as its soul.

Architecture of Processors :

All the Smartphone Processors whether it is Apple , Android based Smartphone or Windows Phone are based upon ARM architecture. ARM is RISC based processor of 32 bit and 64 bit memory. Various ARM processor designs are Cortex A5 , A7 , A8 , A9 , A12 and A15. Some manufactures like Qualcomm uses Concept of ARM and designs their own SoC’s. Examples are Qualcomm Snapdragon , NVIDEA Tegra , Texas instruments OMAP.