64-bit Smartphone

Next year is expected to bring to the market a flurry of smartphones powered by 64-bit processors, the latest reports on the matter suggest. Apparently, chip makers such as Qualcomm, Nvidia and Broadcom will all have 64-bit mobile CPUs available in the first half of the next year, a recent article on DigiTimes reads.

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Intel's recently released low-power Atom processor Bay Trail platform already offers hardware support for 64-bit addressing, plus on-chip acceleration of certain graphics and cryptography functions in double-precision. Bay Trail based tablets with Google Inc.'s (GOOG) popular Android mobile operating system are expected to start this holiday season at $150 USD.

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Since the launch of Windows 8 over a year ago, any tablet devices that have used Microsoft's operating system have been restricted to the 32-bit version. That has stayed the same for the release of the new Windows 8.1 tablets such as the Dell Venue 8. Now Intel says that Windows 8.1 tablets will the 64-bit SKU will begin to go on sale sometime in the first quarter of 2014 using the company's latest Atom processor.

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Intel still has a lot of work to do to cut in to ARM's hold on the tablet and smartphone market share, but as we head into 2014, the company is pulling out all the stops. Today a new Atom system on a chip (SoC) roadmap detailed Intel's plans for 2014 and 2015, with the goal of increasing CPU performance by five times and GPU performance by 15 times by 2016.

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Two of the smartphone market's biggest powers met this week to discuss processors. UK-based ARM Holdings plc (LON:ARM), an architecture company whose titular instruction set is found in 95 percent of smartphones sold today, traveled to South Korea, the home turf of Android phonemaker South Korea's Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KSC:005930). Samsung accounted for over 30 percent of global smartphone shipments in Q3 -- nearly three times more than any other OEM.

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A senior official for ARM has confirmed that Samsung is on track to release a smartphone equipped with a 64-bit Exynos chip in 2014.

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Google is delighting iOS developers who leverage Maps in their applications with an updated software development kit which supports Apple’s 64-bit A7 chip. In a tweet addressing developers, Google says, “We just released version 1.6 of the Google Maps SDK for iOS with 64 bit support, marker opacity, and min/max zoom.”

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A "senior ARM official" has confirmed for Korean media that the chip architecture developer has been working with Samsung to bring a 64-bit processor to its smartphones and tablets next year.

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SINCE its resurgence in the late 1990s, Apple has generally shied away from trumpeting processor speeds, cache sizes or other technical details in its marketing materials, preferring to emphasise what its products can do, rather than what is inside them. It does make exceptions, however, as in the case of the recent launch of the iPhone 5s, its new flagship smartphone.

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The PCalc calculator app for iOS has been updated with 64-bit support, a new darker theme which can automatically switch on and off, an accounting mode, and more.

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A new version of Apple’s AirPort Utility for iOS devices is now available for download from the iTunes App Store. The 1.3.3 release targets devices equipped with the 64-bit A7 chip.

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Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KSC:005930) -- the world's largest smartphone maker -- designs the system-on-a-chip for its smartphones in-house, much like its rival Apple, Inc. (AAPL). Samsung's chip line -- the Exynos -- has struggled, despite Samsung being a top leader in mobile chip manufacturing (Samsung manufactures Apple's latest and greatest A7, the brains of the iPhone 5S).

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At the Intel Developer Forum, I attended a talk by Silvermont (that's Intel's latest low power microarchitecture) lead architect and Intel (INTC) Fellow Belli Kuttanna. Now, in addition to walking away very impressed with Mr. Kuttanna's sheer technical knowledge and ability to communicate that to a crowd, I also felt confident that Intel's mobile CPU cores would be best-in-class going forward.

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It's pretty clear the introduction of the iPad in 2010 marked a turning point in the computer industry, one where consumers began to pivot from buying PCs to tablets. As Apple CEO Tim Cook was quick to point out during Tuesday's press event, the company has sold over 170 million iPads to date. Various analyst reports over the past year have pointed to tablets being on the brink of overtaking PCs in sales.

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With the launch of iPhone 5S, Apple has become the first company to introduce 64-bit computing for smartphones. This development has long-term implications not only for Apple, but also for other key participants in the smartphones and tablets ecosystem – companies like Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Intel.

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