Specing out the Pixi's processor

The Palm Pixi will be the first smartphone to ship with Qualcomm’s new MSM7627 chipset, so there are understandably a lot of questions about what the lower-cost processor will be capable of. While we’ve seen in action that the Pixi isn’t quite as snappy as the Pre, and Palm has said that it won’t support as many open cards (which would seem to be more of a RAM limitation than the processor), the MSM7627 has remained cloaked in mystery.

Over at PalmInfocenter they’ve gotten their hands on the full spec sheet for the MSM7627, which you’ll find below:

• Two ARM cores integrated into a single chip – a dedicated CPU core and a dedicated modem processor – for an unparalleled level of integration:
  • 1. 600MHz applications processor with floating point unit and L2 cache
  • 2. 400MHz modem processor
• Supports both CDMA2000® 1xEV-DO Rev. A and UMTS HSDPA 7.2Mbps/HSUPA 5.76Mbps, and GSM
• In addition to the two ARM cores, features 320MHz application DSP for multimedia supporting full 30 fps WVGA encode/decode, 200MHz hardware-accelerated 3D graphics core supporting OPEN GL 2.0, high-resolution camera, integrated GPS
• 12mm x 12mm footprint
• Optimized power consumption

Yup, you read that right: the modem chip will easily support both EVDO (on the currently announced Pixi) and HSDPA (for the GSM Pixi we all know has to eventually come) - so at least we can be pretty sure that when Palm slaps a GSM radio in this thing, we won't have to guess about the chip again. Also, the 320 MHz DSP (digital signal processor) and 200 MHz 3D graphics core should provide adequate oomph for gaming, once Palm gets around to whipping up an SDK to take advantage of the chip.