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Texas Instruments comments Windows 8 support

by on07 October 2011


On the record
Texas Instruments is not as loud as Nvidia when it comes to public relations, but this company sure has something to say about the future and Windows 8 for their OMAP devices. It is still louder than the super conservative Qualcomm.

The nice chat starts little bit like this. “With respect to Windows 8 on the OMAP platform, the team here at TI is excited to work with Microsoft. Overall, most vendors today accelerate audio and video, but from our perspective—it’s time to move past the “speeds-and-feeds” way of thinking. Instead, through OMAP, we focus on offloading processing tasks to maximize the any device’s efficiency. “

This is how Texas Instruments elaborate their focus for Windows 8. Remember OMAP 5 has two slower processor cores and two high-end Cortex A15 cores. These two Cortex M4 processors will deal with less demanding stuff. This is what Nvidia is doing with its Kal El, incorporating a slow 500MHz processor for less demanding task and four Cortex A9 processors for heavy lifting. It looks like this is the way to go for ARM manufacturers and this level of flexibility, not seen in the x86 world, offers clear advantages in power efficiency.

“The OMAP platform has the unique ability to offload tasks from the GPU and CPU to the hardware accelerators and other engines, which will be key to running Windows 8 efficiently on end products.” said Heather L. Ailara, Wireless Media Relations Manager at Texas instruments.

Hardware accelerators traditionally can do things with less power and this might be the key to longer battery life with Windows 8 on ARM chips such are OMAP 4 or OMAP 5.

“It’s not about funning fast all the time – it’s about running smart. We have to add that most dual core chips on the market are quite fast, but it would be cool to have slightly better battery life with the new operating system, and we are hearing that things should last longer with Windows 8 and ARM alliance including Texas Instruments will be there to help.”
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