The arms race is heating up, and this time, ARM is joining the race by proxy of Samsung. Joining the likes of the Qualcomm Snapdragon and NVIDIA’s Tegra chipsets, the new ARM Cortex 8 got a speed boost to 1 GHz, some custom circuitry by Samsung, and a 45 nm process to be a tad more energy efficient. Samsung mentions that the chip, referred to as Hummingbird, will be headed to some high-end smartphones, though don’t hold your breath on seeing an ARM chip in an HTC unit anytime soon as the Taiwanese Windows Mobile and Android manufacturer has enjoyed a pretty strong relationship with Qualcomm.

On the other hand, Samsung has had a close relationship with Apple. Whether the next generation chips make it to the next generation iPhone is anybody’s guess, but if they do, Apple may under-clock the chip to preserve battery life on its smartphones and handhelds while managing heat dissipation.

(via: Electronista)