While it’s very exciting to be thinking about OMAP 4 and Sparrow, they are a long, long way away from being a reality in a device. More interesting today are the Cortex A8-based products. Texas Instruments have the OMAP3 platform which includes a Cortex A8 core and you can find it in a number of leading-edge computing products like Open Pandora, the BeagleBoard and, when it launches, the Palm Pre. As these and other OMAP34xx devices reach the market, Ti will be feeding in a new range of OMAP3 platforms known as the OMAP36xx series. The platform doesn’t change much in terms of building blocks but there are important incremental improvements all round. The platforms will be available for sampling in Q3 2009 which probably means 2010 production and products.

Most important are the improvements brought by moving to a 45nm process (as the Intel Atom uses) which are said to improve efficiency by up to 25%.  An extra 30 minutes mobile browsing time here and there is never a bad thing! Key features reported on the press release are shown below.

• 45 nm CMOS process technology delivers higher performance with lower power consumption versus the OMAP34x family, including an approximately 25% reduction in power and 75% improvement in graphics performance.
• Robust multi-tasking platform that supports running multiple applications in parallel by simultaneously exercising the CPU, multimedia performance and 2D/3D graphics engines.
• Dedicated 2D/3D graphics hardware accelerator, enabling more immersive user interfaces and compelling graphics for applications like realistic 3D gaming.
• Smart pixel technology via OpenGL ES 2.0 delivers stunning imaging capabilities through advanced reflection effects and life-like facial features.
• Supports multi-standard 720p HD functionality for HD video recording and playback.
• Integrated image signal processor (ISP) supporting up to 12 megapixel (MP) imaging for enhanced photographic image quality and fast shot-to-shot camera performance.
• Pre-integrated support for mobile connectivity, including TI’s current and future combo WiLink^TM Wi-Fi solutions, NaviLink^TM GPS solutions, and BlueLink^TM Bluetooth(r) solutions.

More details on the Ti product pages

That’s not me adding the ‘MID’ label there, that’s exactly what Texas Instruments are saying as they announce the OMAP 4 series of platforms.

OMAP 4 is built using the next generation of ARM Cores, Cortex A9 MPCore, which allow for dual-core builds.

Helping Smartphone and Mobile Internet Device (MID) manufacturers shape the future of the mobile market with innovative devices, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced the new OMAP™ 4 mobile applications platform. The OMAP 4 platform delivers new, stunning, multimedia-rich user experiences such as 1080p video record and playback, 20 megapixel (MP) imaging and approximately a week of audio play time. The new platform provides significant improvements in performance and play time compared to today’s most popular Smartphones, with 10x faster Web page loading times, more than 7x higher computing performance, 6x higher video resolution, 10x better graphics performance and 6x longer audio play time.

The last time I spoke to Ti, their definition of MIDs was slightly wider ranging than the average definition out there and included voice-enabled sliders, tablets and netbooks so you can see why they are giving it such weighting.

Putting the figures into perspective from the above excerpt, I’d say they’re talking about performance levels well above the baseline 800Mhz Silverthorne Atom from Intel. Maybe something around the 1.3Ghz Atom level that we see today. Of course that’s an educated guess. Real-world speed really depends on software and ergonomics in addition to raw power.

There’s a lot of information to digest on the press release and accompanying white papers but don’t worry too much unless you intend to use it in multi-million quantities , it’s initially aimed at large volume wireless carriers and won’t be in production until late 2010. For you, me and the rest of the potential customers out there, we’ve still got the OMAP 3 platform to look forward to. Now where’s that new Nokia Tablet?

When we talk about ‘Mobile Internet’ the first thing we often think about is mobile Web. We’ve heard about ‘Full Internet Experience’ and ‘Internet in your Pocket’ and seen diagram after diagram showing how a full-fat 800×480 browser is the key but the truth is that it is just a small element of what’s picking up steam in the mobile Internet device market.  In fact, the mobile Web is just one of the things enabled by mobile Internet. Its a strong focal point but it would be a complete mistake to think that that is the only thing a MID is going to be.

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It seems we’re giving a lot of airtime to ARM-based architectures today. And why not; The evolution of the smartphone into the MID and netbook sectors is one that we should all be aware of. In this, largely promotional video from Texas Instruments, Seshu Madhavapeddy, General Manager, Mobile Internet Devices talks about the MID segment, their OMAP 3 platform (as used in the new Archos)  and mentions a 1-watt MID. That is, 1-watt at full power including connectivity and screen. Wow! My N82 smartphone with its tiny screen and highly integrated silicon takes more than double that at full internet-connected tilt so I wonder what timeframe Ti are talking about here.