ARM Cortex-A9 - a 28nm, 2GHz beast

Have you ever wondered whether desktop and notebooks processors or smartphone processor are more high-tech? Sure, first two have a lot more computing power, but ARM Cortex microprocessor family – being a well known mobile SoC platform – is waiting for an important Cortex-A9 update later this year. ARM together with GLOBALFOUNDRIES have found a way to optimize High-K Metal Gate technology for Cortex-A9 chip. High-K Metal Gate, or HKMG for short, is industry first 28nm fabrication process technology and I doubt there is a need go to though all small fabrication process advantages here (high-end desktop solutions are only 32nm feature-sized). ARM Cortex-A9 reportedly goes into mass production in late 2010 clocked at around 2GHz. Still, ARM is not out of ideas so far. Even now they are already planning on a 20nm SoC in two year time. Fabrication process is indeed the new clock speed.