Samsung unveils 2GHz Exynos dual-core processor for smartphones and tablets

5250 chip will support stereoscopic 3D and display resolutions of 2,560x1,600

Samsung will make a 2GHz dual-core processor available early next year as the company's efforts to boost the power and performance of smartphones and tablets continues.

The Exynos 5250 is based on ARM's A15 Cortex architecture, and Samsung claims that the chip is capable of processing 14,000 DMIPS, double the number of instructions that current Cortex A9-based CPUs can process.

The forthcoming processor will also boast four times the graphics performance of the commonly used Exynos 4210.

Samsung said that the 5250 will allow tablets to display WQXGA resolutions of up to 2,560x1,600, representing a marked improvement over the typical 1,280x800 resolution on most tablets on the market.

The Exynos 5250 will also have built-in support for stereoscopic 3D, suggesting that 2012 could be the year when 3D mobile devices are really pushed to consumers.

The Korean manufacturer said that the Exynos 5250 will go into mass production in the second quarter of 2012, and will no doubt debut in one of the firm's high-end devices.

It will be interesting to see how the Samsung chip compares against the forthcoming quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor.

The Tegra 3 is based on ARM's A9 Cortex architecture, and will offer three times the graphics performance of the popular Tegra 2.

Nvidia also claims that the Tegra 3 will consume up to 61 per cent less power than its predecessor, which the firm says will translate to 12 hours of battery life for HD video playback.

The processor is due to arrive in the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime in January.