ARM is targeting midrange, $200 smartphones and tablets with its Cortex-A17 processor core, announced Tuesday. ARM's new suite, comprised of processor, graphics processor and physical IP, is an update to ARM's mid-range IP offering and will be available in devices for production in 2015 and beyond.

While mobile devices are moving toward 64-bit computing, the Cortex-A17 is 32-bit, as ARM is expecting that there will be a strong demand for 32-bit midrange mobile devices in the coming years. ARM has already introduced the 64-bit Cortex-A57 and A53 cores.

ARM claims that the Cortex-A17 processor offers a 60 percent performance improvement over Cortex-A9 processors, enabling better power and area efficiency while supporting full-system coherency for ARM big.LITTLE processing using the CoreLink CCI-400 Cache Coherent Interconnect.



The Mali-T720 GPU is a cost-optimized graphics solution targeted at entry-level Android devices. It supports the latest graphics and GPU computing APIs, including Open GL ES 3.0, OpenCL and RenderScript.

Additionally, the mid-range IP suite includes the Mali-V500 video solution, an efficient and compact video processor delivering up to 4K resolutions and when combined with the new Mali-DP500 display controller, enables security from content to the glass.

ARM provides SoC designers the ARM POP IP implementation solutions on 28nm process technology. POP IP for the Cortex-A17 processor includes core-hardening acceleration technology and delivers 2.0+ GHz implementations.

MediaTek, Realtek and VIA Telecom have already announced SoC designs based on the new A17-Cortex processor.

With the Cortex A17 aiming at the latter, ARM sees a potential market of around 450 million devices in 2015.