According to the chip designer, new features, such as GPS and TV, mean mobile devices will soon need multi-core performance

Smartphones and other mobile devices are set to get a performance boost from a new multi-core processor design unveiled by ARM. The company also announced it is working with partners to deliver a Linux-based platform for mobile devices.

At its annual developers' conference, the chip design firm launched the Cortex A9 processor family, which includes both multi-core and single core versions. The multi-core Cortex A9 MPCore enables processors to have up to four cores, but such chips are not expected to appear in production handsets until about 2010, the company said.

Eric Schorn, vice president of marketing for ARM's processor division, said that as more functions, such as GPS and TV, are added to phones, there is a greater need for multi-core performance.

Symbian said it will support the new processor architecture in future versions of its Symbian OS platform to provide “performance on demand” – maximising battery life as much as possible by using multiple cores only when running demanding multimedia applications.

Meanwhile, ARM also demonstrated at the conference a Linux-based mobile platform for mobile connected devices. The platform is under development by ARM and its partners to run on ARM-based chips, and is expected to be used in ultra-mobile devices for web browsing and other applications.