ARM announces 64-bit mobile processors are coming – and Samsung will build them

Mobile device processor design firm ARM has unveiled its first 64-bit chips designed for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

According to Hot Hardware, the UK-based chip designers have come up with two processor designs based on its new 64-bit Cortex A-50 architecture, including a high-performance chip called Cortex A-57 and a low-power design called Cortex A-53.

By featuring 64-bit memory addressing, the new chips will expand the potential amount of memory that can be included in mobile devices, while also potentially bringing significantly faster speeds through performance efficiency gains.

The company claims the new chips “provide computer performance comparable to a legacy PC, while operating in a mobile power budget, enabling cost and power efficiency benefits for both enterprise users and consumers”.

ARM has already announced a number of manufacturing partners for the chip, including Samsung, AMD, Broadcom, Calxeda and STMicro.

However, several of ARM’s regular manufacturing partners, including quad-core Snapdragon processor maker Qualcomm and graphics processor manufacturer Nvidia have not been announced as manufacturing partners for the new chips.

While Samsung signing up as a manufacturing partner means it is likely the new chips will be used in future Galaxy smartphones and tablets, the chips are not likely to be commercially available until 2014.