Chip maker Qualcomm has promised to start delivering 64-bit smartphone processors based on ARMv8 architecture later this year. Now a report from CNMOÂ suggests that the upcoming ZTE “Apollo” could be one of the first Android smartphones to use a Qualcomm 64-bit processor.
The ZTE Apollo wouldn’t be the first 64-bit phone: that honor goes to the Apple iPhone 5S. But ZTE’s phone could be one of the first Android-powered devices with a 64-bit chip.
Qualcomm has a series of ARMv8 chips in the works, including the Snapdragon 808 and 810 chips for high-end devices and Snapdragon 410, 610, and 615 processor for mid-range devices.
While the CNMO report makes it sound like ZTE’s phone would run one of the higher-end chips, it seems more likely that it’ll feature one of the lower-power Snapdragon chips based on an ARM Cortex-A53 design, since Qualcomm expects to deliver those processors in 2014 while the Snapdragon 808 and 810 will begin sampling this year but aren’t expected to show up in real products until 2015.
The Snapdragon 808 and 810 are hexa-core and octa-core chips which use ARM’s big.LITTLE technology to pair high-performance Cortex-A57 CPU cores with lower-power Cortex-A53 cores to offer a mix of performance and energy efficiency.
via G for Games and Phone Arena