TI Tip Multi-Platform ARM Cortex A15 "Eagle" Mobile Devices

In the aftermath of ARM's stonking new Cortex A15 "Eagle" chipset breaking cover yesterday, Texas Instruments are keen to play up their "lead Eagle licensee" role.  TI OMAP manager Brian Carlson has been detailing some of the advances Eagle brings over at the company's official blog, and one of the most interesting is the potential for "multiple, simultaneous operating environments": more than one OS running concurrently on the same mobile device.

As Carlson points out, that sort of virtualization isn't particularly new; earlier this week, VirtualLogix demonstrated Android 2.2, Chrome OS and Ubuntu Linux all running simultaneously on a Texas Instruments OMAP Blaze developer device (pictured above).  The difference is in how efficient and flexible that experience is, with Cortex A15 apparently improving both performance and security, together with the new chip's extended address space for larger memories and thus more complex applications.

"The combination of significant performance improvement, larger memory and virtualization" Carlson continues. "will open up many new opportunities, and will drive new use models and experiences for mobile devices."  Meanwhile power consumption could be even lower than previous generations of ARM-based OMAP chipsets, with 60-percent less required for browsing when using TI's SmartReflex 3 engine.  Of course, with the first ARM Cortex A15 chips not expected until 2013, there's some time to go before we can expect multi-platform smartphones in our pockets.