Arm introduces Lumex cores and Mali G1-Ultra graphics for smartphones: AI acceleration and +40% FPS in games

Arm has introduced a new generation of processor cores for mobile chips, as well as a graphics accelerator that will become the basis for smartphones in 2025-2026. The company has officially announced four CPU cores: Lumex C1-Ultra, Lumex C1-Pro, Lumex C1-Premium, and Lumex C1-Nano, as well as the new Mali G1-Ultra GPU. They are expected to be used first by MediaTek Dimensity 9500, followed by Samsung Exynos 2600. This time, Arm has completely changed the naming scheme, abandoning the familiar Cortex and Mali designations.

Arm Lumex CPU series

Lumex computing cores are divided into four categories. Lumex C1-Ultra is the successor to Cortex-X925 and is responsible for maximum performance. Lumex C1-Premium and C1-Pro replace the Cortex-A725 and serve as “medium” cores. Finally, the Lumex C1-Nano is the direct successor to the Cortex-A520, which is an energy-efficient core.

Arm has demonstrated a reference chip design with two C1-Ultra cores and a cluster of six C1-Pro cores — this is the configuration that can be obtained Dimensity 9500.

According to Arm, the C1-Ultra core is 25% faster than the Cortex-X925, while the C1-Pro delivers 12% higher power efficiency than the Cortex-A725 thanks to a noticeable increase in IPC (instructions per clock cycle).

The main competitors of the new cores will be the successors of Apple Everest and Sawtooth in the A19/A19 Pro chips, as well as Qualcomm Nuvia cores, which will debut in the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 / Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

All four cores are based on the new Arm v9.3 architecture. The main innovation is support for SME2 (Scalable Matrix Extension) instructions. They can speed up artificial intelligence tasks by 5 times, and the energy efficiency of such computations will increase by 3 times.

GPU Arm Mali G1-Ultra

Arm has also updated its GPU lineup, replacing the Immortalis brand with the simpler Ultra. The new Mali G1-Ultra promises +20% overall performance and twice as fast ray tracing, which results in a +40% increase in frames per second.

The competition here is significant. On the one hand, there are Apple graphics, on the other hand, Qualcomm Adreno 840 and Samsung Xclipse 950, which may be the first in-house solution from the Korean manufacturer in recent years.

So far, Arm has not specified the dates of the new solutions, but leaks indicate that we won’t have long to wait.

Source: notebookcheck