Samsung Electronics, South Korea's largest electronics manufacturer, is reportedly working on the next big milestone in the smartphone gigahertz race: 2GHz per core. Such processors will narrow the gap between smartphones and desktop PCs, according to Samsung, at least in terms of raw processing power. ARM already has a dual-core Cortex-A9 design capable of such speeds, and we wouldn't be surprised if this is what Samsung is using for the basis of its new processor designs.
"We are planning to release a 2Ghz dual core CPU-equipped smartphone by next year," a high-ranking Samsung official is reportedly quoted as saying, according to a Maeli Business Newspaper. "This product will have the data processing capacity of a regular PC." Note that this quote was originally in Korean and has been roughly translated, but the gist is still there.
Samsung also plans to sell the new CPUs, which will likely be launched under Samsung's Exynos brand, to other phone makers. Samsung has been mainly manufacturing mobile CPU for its own product lines, but is planning to expand into mobile processor sales, so you likely won't have to buy a Samsung-branded handset if you want to, shall we say, get up to speed.
The first 1GHz smartphones hit the market some two years ago, dual core CPUs for smartphones are available now, and so it's exciting that we're already heading toward 2GHz dual core CPUs for smartphones. I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited, though I really do hope that the CPUs are developed with battery life in mind. As smartphone typically last me a day, and I would really be annoyed if that time decreased further.