Panasonic Using ARM Cortex-A9 in Smart TV SoC

Both ARM and Panasonic revealed that the new UniPhier MN2WS0220 SoC for smart TVs will feature a dual-core Cortex-A9 MPCore design, a 3D graphics engine and other surprising features.

Usually when we hear the name "ARM," it means technology used for tablets and smartphones. But on Wednesday ARM said that its technology is now being used in Panasonic Corporation's just-announced UniPhier (short for Universal Platform for High-quality Image Enhancing Revolution) MN2WS0220 System on Chip (SoC).

According to ARM, these SoCs will be installed in Internet Connected Digital "Smart" TVs and consist of ARM's dual-core Cortex-A9 MPCore processor design typically running at up to 1.4 GHz, ARM CoreLink NIC-301 Network Interconnect and the ARM Cortex-A9 POP for Low Power (LP) process. Panasonic's high-quality audio-visual processing technology will also be incorporated into the chip as well as a high performance 3D graphics engine possibly based on ARM's Mali GPU technology.

"Panasonic's new chip will open the way for a new generation of smart TVs that allow users to simultaneously enjoy two TV broadcasting channels, as well as Internet-based content and applications in high-resolution at the same time," Panasonic said in a separate release. "In addition, the new chip is able to reduce power consumption of and the number of components used in smart TVs, which will help drive smart TVs to spread in the global market."

Panasonic added that the overall reduction in smart TV power consumption will be around 40-percent thanks to the use of the new UniPhier SoC. Samples are expected to ship to manufacturers sometime later this month, and it's likely that the company will use the chip in its own smart TV offerings as well as provide them for other smart TV manufactures. For ARM this would be a good thing as it begins to dominate a blossoming smart TV frontier.

"Working with Panasonic Corporation on leading designs for this type of smart device provides consumers with the connected life that they now demand," said Tudor Brown, president, ARM. "We are delighted that the long-term relationship between ARM and Panasonic Corporation on processor cores and implementation optimization has resulted in leading devices, such as the UniPhier MN2WS0220 SoC. Our work developing future generations of SoCs with Panasonic Corporation for use in smart TV applications is an exciting prospect."

So far Panasonic hasn't released pricing or an estimated street date of when MN2WS0220-enabled devices will hit the market. Does it sound like these smart TVs will have the ability to play gaming apps like NOVA and Dungeon Hunter?