Samsung has officially unveiled its first dual-core processor for mobile devices, the CORTEXTM-A9 ‘Orion.’ Built using 45-nanometer fabrication technology, both of Orion’s ARM Cortex A9 cores clock in at 1GHz — not as fast, theoretically, as Qualcomm’s 1.3GHz and 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragons, but as we’ve been reminded on several occasions, clock speed is not the only measure of performance.

Orion also sports a pair of 32KB data and instruction caches, along with a 1MB L2 cache and built in GPS baseband processor. Even more exciting are promises of 30fps video playback and capture at 1080p full HD resolution, not to mention support for three total displays: two on-board (like the BlackBerry Style flip) and one external monitor thanks to its HDMI 1.3a interface.

Samsung plans to sample Orion to customers during the fourth quarter, with mass production of the chips scheduled for the first half of next year.

(via: Engadget, image courtesy of intomobile)