Qualcomm Scorpion. Ghz-capable mobile device platform.

Almost a year ago, we heard about new Marvel ‘Monahans’ processors that were capable of Ghz+ speeds. It turned out that the Ghz figures where only test speeds but even so, the 800Mhz of the Monahans PXA 320 was pretty impressive. A version of the chip is going to appear in the Ipaq 214 at 624 Mhz (capable of 30fpx H264 at VGA res apparently…very tasty!) and I’m going to be keeping an eye on that PocketPC very closely. Especially is Opera Mobile 9 launches soon.

Today we’re hearing about another ARM-based solution from Qualcomm. Its the Snapdragon mobile device platform which includes the Scorpion Cortex-A8 processor *1 (references to this processor go way back to 2006 so its nothing new) that can scale to 1Ghz. Qualcomm call it the worlds fastest mobile processor.

• XGA display support with LCDC
• Up to 12.0 megapixel camera
• WVGA encode/decode
• Supports Launchpadâ„¢ audio and video solutions including: Qcameraâ„¢, Qtvâ„¢, Qvideophoneâ„¢, Qcamcorderâ„¢
• Digital audio support for MP3, aacPlusâ„¢ and Enhanced aacPlus
• Ubiquitous Connectivity. Support for all mobile broadband standards and many technologies complementary to WWAN finally delivers on the promise of seamless always-on connectivity.
• Universal Modem supporting all 2G and 3G mobile broadband standards (CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, Revisions B, A and 0; HSPA, WCDMA, GSM / GPRS / EDGE)
• Support for IEEE 802.11 (WLAN) and VoIP with VCC capabilities
• Broadcast technologies: MediaFLOâ„¢, SDMB, ISDB-T,TDMB, and DVB-H with QUALCOMM’s UBMâ„¢ universal broadcast modem
• Support for Bluetooth® 2.0 + EDR solution for personal wireless connectivity

According to the press release and WindowsForDevices, Samsung and HTC are adopting this platform for some of their future products. For some I can’t get the word ‘Android’ out of my head!

Press release. Thanks to JKK and Kenneth for the tips.

*1. Some info on Scorpion, its processing power and architechture here.