ARM Community: CES Day 1: ARM Partners take center stage: NVIDIA, Motorola, Microsoft, Rockchip - ARM Community

For ARM, CES got off to an early start with some great Partner announcements and really stunning products. The technology innovation this year is fierce: from new approaches to gaming, smartphones that are now superphones that morph into desktop computing systems, to 1GHz+ CPUs for every market from the US to China. My first day at CES was exhausting, but also exhilarating. Here are a few of the highlights from our Partners:

NVIDIA expands partnership with ARM, redefining the future of clients and servers
It would have been hard to miss NVIDIA this year. They started CES off with a bang with announcements ranging from 6 new superphones and tablets featuring NVIDIA’s ARM-based, dual-core, 1GHz+ Tegra 2 processor to a new license agreement for the ARM Architecture and Cortex-A15 processor. With access to this level of ARM technology, NVIDIA aims to create super-optimized SoC platforms for next generation compute platforms from mobile clients to servers.

My colleague Jeff Chu managed to catch-up with Mike Rayfield, the GM of NVIDIA’s Mobile Business Unit for an inside look at NVIDIA’s latest technology, software innovation, and future plans.



Innovation is alive and well at Motorola
A snappy new red logo was not the only thing creating a buzz at the Motorola booth this year. Motorola’s new phone platform (the Motorola Atrix 4G), and desktop companion technology was creating quite a stir. Featuring a dual-core 1GHz+ ARM processor (hum sound familiar NVIDIA?), this platform rocks. It is a superphone that morphs into a laptop, which morphs into a desktop. Leveraging Mozilla’s Firefox browser technology and full Adobe Flash support this platform delivers the full internet and video content experience across any screen you choose. The booth was buzzing but it didn’t stop us from getting a closer look at this new platform.



Microsoft enriches the user experience across gaming and mobile, and redefines the future of PCs!
Microsoft sure made a big splash on the evening before the opening day, when they announced support for the ARM architecture in their next Windows Operating System release. They demoed Windows on ARM-based platforms from Qualcomm, NVIDIA, and Texas Instruments. ARM and Microsoft have been collaborating for well over 10 years and more recently announced a significant license agreement. But this announcement has a special significance because the combination of Microsoft’s Windows Operating System, the scalability of the low-power ARM architecture, and extensive SoC expertise of the ARM Partnership can deliver transformation change to the future of computing.

While the Microsoft OS announcement was big news, to my teenage daughters XBOX Kinect and WindowsPhone7 were the hot items I needed to check out on day 1 at CES.

First the XBOX Kinect technology that, according to teardown reports is powered by a Marvell processor, really takes gaming to a whole new level. With Kinect you are un-teathered and truly free to interact with the game. When you add in the new Avatar feature on display at CES, this game becomes an experience my teenage daughters won’t be able to live without.

Just around the corner from Kinect display, I got to experience Microsoft’s WindowsPhone7 operating system running on a 1GHz+ ARM-based Snapdragon platform. The user experience was intuitive, responsive and seamlessly integrated with our increasingly connected social channels.



Meet Rockchip – Developing leading edge ARM SoCs for China
Do you want to be truly impressed at the speed of innovation? Then you need to meet ARM Partner Rockchip. Rockchip is not new to ARM Partner scene; they have developed audio and video technology for a number of years and built really impressive systems based on ARM7 and ARM9 CPUs. But what you need to take note of is that now Rockchip has a brand new platform the RK29XX, based on the Cortex-A8 processor. This platform screams at 1GHz+ operating frequency and an optimized implementation of the Android OS. Jeff Chu met up with Feng Chen, Rockchip’s Chief Marketing Officer to discuss Rockchip’s history with ARM, the new RK29XX platform, and open source software innovation.



I hope you enjoyed our first day at CES; stay tuned for more ARM Partner News and insight.

Kerry McGuire Balanza, Director of Strategic Marketing, ARM, Growing up in a tiny little technology town and then moving to Austin to work in the mobile industry has led to a lifetime of being a technology groupie. Fascinated by the changing technical industry and the impact of technology on society trends, she enjoys watching the industry evolve by working with the best of ARM’s partners.