In the spirit of our efforts to continue to evolve and scale the world’s most advanced mobile operating system and to further open up a world of infinite possibilities, I would like to announce a key milestone. A team at ST-Ericsson, and ARM have the operating system now running on a highly capable SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing) configuration.
The hardware platform is up and running with all interfaces working, including CPU, caches, trace, dual display, memory controller, power management units, modem and RF. The SMP version of Symbian, with what is the same code base that has been checked in to the Foundation source code repository, runs on the dual core, and they have validated the L1 and L2 caches as well as cache coherency and synchronization between the 2 cores.
Translation; this is the first time a dual cortex configuration is validated on production silicon and runs an open mobile operating system. Notice the attached video, and the indicators in the upper left corner of the display representing solid activity on both cores.
The environment consists of an ST-Ericsson U8500 smart phone platform embedding the first silicon implementation of ARM® Cortex™-A9 MPCore in the industry. A single instance of the Symbian operating system schedules multiple threads concurrently, distributing the CPU load on the two cores. This guarantees the best combination of high performance and low power providing an unparalleled capability to build next generation mobile products for a variety of advanced consumer experiences.
See below for some additional technical highlights and try and keep the drool to a minimum.
About the hardware :
o Single chip base band and application processor engine
o HSPA Modem Release7
o ARM® Cortex™-A9 MPCore
Which can accommodate features and functionality such as :
o HD 1080p camcorder and video
o Up to 18 Million pixels camera
o ~100 hours audio playback time
o 10 hours HD video playback time
o Simultaneously TV out over HDMI
o Video and Imaging accelerator
o HW accelerated 3D Graphics supporting OpenGL ES2.0
o 2xWVGA (960×854) displays
o Touch UI on 2 displays
This is exciting news, and can really fuel our efforts to help our members keep building new products and services at the high end of the Smartphone marketplace.
// Lee
12 Comments
While cool, this feels so wrong for mobile!
I suppose if you wave your hand and say like Obi Wan: “this guarantees the best combination of high performance and low power” I should believe you, but…
There’s no Moore’s law for battery life. Most Symbian phones are already running two cores — one chip for the Symbian OS and one chip for the radio stack. This already puts Symbian-based devices at a disadvantage when it comes to *connected* battery life compared to single-chip mobile devices out there like the BlackBerry.
I wish the Symbian foundation was focusing more of its engineering talent on optimizing *connected* battery life.
Michael – why do you say that running two cores is inherently worse than running a single core?
AFAIK power consumption of any given CPU increases great-than-linearly against clock-speed; i.e. the exact same load should consume less power when running on two CPUs than when running on one. So far from being an inherent _disadvantage_ I would have thought that running on multiple CPUs was an inherent _advantage (at least as far as power consumption is concered, hardware cost is another issue).
BTW – I’m very surprised to hear that the BlackBerry doesn’t have a separate DSP that runs the radio stack (though I’m sure it’s on the same chip). I don’t really see the benefit – power, performance, and cost all seem better with a radio stack DSP.
Finally, I see that Symbian is heading towards a very good direction. Now all that is needed are great developers behind the Foundation and create great apps to go along with the OS. Keep it up guys and gals.
Indeed Antony is correct. Multiple cores, and more generally separate hardware blocks for specific tasks typically saves power! Fundamentally because you can switch things off when you’re not using them.
I’m not sure what you really mean by *connected* battery life? While you’re browsing the web, or connected to some other internet service? In which case the main CPU will hardly be in use at all most of the time.
Obviously with a monster of a piece of hardware like the one discussed in this article, you can run the battery down a lot faster if you really want to, that’s why the right software is so important! Symbian’s SMP implementation is all about making the best speed for power consumption trade-offs. That’s not true of the current Linux implementation for example, since that was designed with an always connected desktop in mind.
Pushing everything onto a single chip (and Symbian can already run on single chip devices) typcially saves BoM cost for the device, but this is not relevant for the multi-core vs single core debate.
Hi Michael,
I think maybe you missed the point of the above announcement. The chip above is a single-chip modem (as per your example for Blackberry), but rather than running one ARM core it has two. From an energy management perspective it is better to run two cores at a lower rate than one at a higher rate. Hence the push to SMP. If you look at the desktop with the Intel Core Duo the same rational applied- You cannot play the megahertz came for ever. Battery life as you rightly point out does not follow Moore’s law rather its own 3-5 year cycle.
As others have commented on most chips today have dedicated blocks handling things like multimedia and especially graphics. When not needed, you switch them off. When you look at your Blackberry device it may be single-chip, but it is certainly multi-core (ARM, DSP and others depending upon the phone). For energy management, you should always look to turn down (reduce voltage), off-load (to dedicated hardware) and turn-off (when not using). SMP falls into the first and last categories.
To pick up on your other point single-chip vs two-chip. It is my observation that it is a cycle between both. When new technology is introduced it is often on the Apps/UI side which pushes towards a two-chip solution, as the technology matures it becomes more and more integrated. Baseband technology in terms of technology upgrades is usually a little slower especially given the type approval phones go through. Hence the desire sometimes to linger with two-chips.
As Mark pointed out BOM is king for the mid to low end, so single-chips are almost mandatory.
FYI having worked at ARM (around power management), Symbian and now Nokia (through acquisition) one might say I am biased. However, I believe the above is a fair assesement of the state of play.
Me personally I cannot wait to get my hands on an SMP powered device, that consumes far less battery life.
Cheers,
Kevin
Bear in mind that many symbian phones have shipped with one or more arm cores already (one for the signalling stack/modem (usually an arm7) and one for the application OS (e.g arm11).
In my experience, most discussions around power usage are not evidence based. If you are running the LED on full, GPS or 3G streaming then your battery is dead pretty quick regardless of how many cores you have.
My E71 is already too hot when the CPU is maxed for a while, so I think the temperature ceiling is a big factor (heat syncs don’t work well at all in trouser pockets).
Which ever way you look at it- power management on a closed system is a hell of a lot easier than on an open system. Big challenges lay ahead.
in the video i like the way he has to kick the machine to get it to work!
The video is definitely impressive
And yes, glad to see Symbian moving toward right direction.
good hardware specs that can basically be for any phone OS out there but when will we see the symbian OS that will go and actually take advantage of those specs? 1 year form now? 2 years from now? I did see a road map a while ago so I’d say maybe a 1 year and a half.
Lu, the demo shows a version of Symbian running that can already take advantage of those specs. You won’t see the processor in a real commercial device for a while but that’s not because the software isn’t ready to take advantage of it. The processor is only just up and running, it’ll take time to design products around it and bring them to market.
I just saw the new Nokia E72 and was anxious to know the outcome of a the above chip on a smartphone like this. This’ll take the smartphone to a palpable level. I am also keen on knowing the LTE factor in all of this.
جميعنا يعلم الآن أن أجهزة Nokia و العديد من أجهزة الشركات الأخرى تستخدم نظام التشغيل Symbian و الذي بات يتبع رسميا مؤسسة Symbian Foundation التي ….
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