Whenever a new phone appears, one of the first things that many of us ask is just what kind of processor is powering the device.  Next year, the answer to that question could very well be the Texas Instruments OMAP4440.  TI unveiled its new processor today, which is the follow up to the OMAP4430.  The OMAP4440 is a dual-core Cortex A9-based processor which can be clocked up to a blazing 1.5GHz.  TI says that the speed increase that the OMAP4440 brings to the table will allow for a 30 percent decrease in webpage load times, 1.25x better graphics performance, and 1080p playback that's twice as fast as the 4430.  The speedy new member of the OMAP family will start to be sampled to manufacturers in Q1 2011, with full production expected to begin in the second half of the year.  Check out the press release below.

It's kind of crazy that TI is already planning the sequel to the OMAP4430 before it's even released, but I'm not complaining.  With both the 4430 and 4440 coming next year, alongside the several other powerful processors, 2011 is going to be a good year for you speed freaks out there.  Sure, they may not be quad-core chips, but I have a feeling that they'll do just fine.

TI's OMAP4440 processor boasts new upgrades, raises the bar for mobile design

Mobile video teleconferencing, stereoscopic-3D and gesture recognition capabilities gain from OMAP™ 4 technology upgrades, including speeds of 1.5 GHz per CPU core

DALLAS (Dec. 8, 2010) – Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE:TXN) today announced that the OMAP4440 applications processor enhancements deliver impressive performance improvements beyond the OMAP4430 processor, including a 1.25x increase in graphics performance, a 30 percent decrease in webpage load time, a 2x increase in 1080p video playback performance and clock speeds as fast as 1.5 GHz per ARM® Cortex™-A9 MPCore™. These marked performance advantages, along with other feature enhancements, reaffirm the OMAP™ 4 platform's ability to drive today's most coveted Smartphone and tablet user experiences, such as 1080p stereoscopic 3D (S3D), 1080p video conferencing and gesture recognition. For OMAP4440 processor details, visit: www.ti.com/omap4440.

"The increased performance given by the OMAP4440 applications processor illustrates TI's ability to push mobile computing possibilities with the right processor architecture enveloped in the right platform, " said Remi El-Ouazzane, vice president, OMAP platform business unit, TI. "We seized an opportunity to enhance the platform capabilities driving the OMAP4430 processor's success today. As OMAP4430 processor-based products hit the market in first half 2011, we're arming our customers with a huge performance boost via an easy migration to OMAP4440 processor for their next wave of exciting devices. The resulting user experiences will radically impact how consumers continue to integrate mobile technology into their daily lives."

OMAP4440 processor: Primed for upgraded mobile user experiences
The OMAP 4 platform is a highly-optimized system-on-chip (SOC) leveraging two ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore general-purpose processors, reaching speeds of 1.5 GHz per core, complemented by two ARM Cortex-M3 cores to power-efficiently offload time-critical and control tasks. High-performance multimedia capabilities are provided by programmable cores including a POWERVR™ 3D graphics engine, TI IVA 3 for high-definition/multi-standard video, TI image signal processor (ISP) for high-quality/high-megapixels imaging, TI low-power audio processor and TI digital signal processor (DSP) based on the TI C64x DSP for natural user interface and signal processing innovations optimized for mobile applications.

Via Texas Instruments