NovaThor was a platform consisting of integrated System on Chips (SoC) and modems for smartphones and tablets developed by ST-Ericsson, a 50/50 joint venture of Ericsson and STMicroelectronics established on February 3, 2009. ST-Ericsson also sold the SoCs (Nova) and the modems (Thor) separately.NOVA TM - Highest performance application processors The application processor portion of the system was the successor of the previous Nomadik line from STMicroelectronics.
History
In early 2009, when development had already begun on a Nomadik SoC called STn8500, it was superseded by the NovaThor family from ST-Ericsson and renamed U8500 as the ST-NXP Wireless division was merged into the ST-Ericsson joint venture.
On November 2, 2011, Nokia announced that NovaThor SoCs will power Nokia's future Windows Phone based smartphones, making a deviation from the standard use of Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs in Windows Phones.
On February 28, 2012, ST-Ericsson announced that they would switch to fully depleted silicon on insulator (FD-SOI) transistors for upcoming products to reduce power consumption. As an example they stated that the L8540 SoC with FD-SOI transistors would consume 35% less power.
On April 23, 2012, the company announced that development of application processors (such as NovaThor) was to be moved back into STMicroelectronics.
On November 21, 2012, it was announced that ST-Ericsson had joined the Sailfish Alliance hence NovaThor ModAp platform would support Jolla's smartphones and Sailfish OS.
On December 10, 2012, ST-Ericsson announced that STMicroelectronics will leave the joint venture after a transition period making Ericsson the full owner of the company.
On December 20, 2012, Ericsson announced that they will not buy the remaining 50% stake that STMicroelectronics held. The future for the company therefore remained uncertain.
On January 30, 2013, ST-Ericsson announced as part of its quarterly result that they had shipped 10.7 million U8500 NovaThor units in the fourth quarter of 2012.ST-Ericsson reports fourth quarter 2012 financial results
On May 28, 2013, ST-Ericsson announced that they would sell the assets and intellectual property rights for its mobile connectivity Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) to Intel for $90 million.
On August 5, 2013, Ericsson and STMicroelectronics completed the split up of ST-Ericsson and NovaThor is since a STMicroelectronics product.
List of Nova and NovaThor SoCs Model Number Semiconductor technology CPU Instruction Set CPU GPU Memory Technology Wireless Radio Technologies Availability Utilizing Devices NovaThor U8500NovaThor U8500 Product Webpage; ST Ericsson. 40 nm ARMv7 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 ARM Mali 400 MP (single core) LP-DDR2 HSPA 2011 Motorola XT760, HTC Desire 400 dual sim Ontim WP8500,ST-Ericsson NovaThor U8500 powers new tablet from Ontim Samsung Galaxy Ace 2, Samsung Galaxy Beam, Samsung Galaxy S Advance,ST-Ericsson NovaThor U8500 powers new Samsung GALAXY S Advance Samsung Galaxy S III Mini,ST-ERICSSON NOVATHOR MODAP POWERS NEW SAMSUNG GALAXY S III MINI Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2, Shanda Bambook, Sony Xperia go, Sony Xperia P, Sony Xperia Sola, Sony Xperia U, Yulong Coolpad CP7728, NovaThor U9500NovaThor U9500 Product Webpage; ST Ericsson. 45 nm ARMv7 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 ARM Mali 400 MP LP-DDR2 GSM/EDGE, WCDMA/HSPA+ (HSDPA 21 Mbit/s, HSUPA 5.76 Mbit/s) 2011 Nova A9500Changing the game: ST-Ericsson Unveils NovaThor™ Family of Smartphone Platforms Combining its Most Advanced Application Processors with the Latest Generation of Modems 45 nm ARMv7 1.2 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 ARM Mali 400 MP LP-DDR2 None 2011 HTC Sensation Z710T (China),Powerful New ST-Ericsson Platform makes Debut in HTC Sensation Lenovo LePhone S899t, SnowballSnowball is a low power, low cost Single Board Computer based on the ST-Ericsson Nova A9500 processor (Dual Cortex A9 + Mali 400 GPU) Nova A9540Nova™ A9540 32 nm ARMv7 1.85 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 PowerVR SGX 544 Dual-channel LP-DDR2 None Cancelled NovaThor L9540NOVATHOR™ L9540 32 nm ARMv7 1.85 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 PowerVR SGX 544 Dual-channel LP-DDR2 LTE FDD/TDD, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, EDGE (external Thor M7400 modem) Cancelled NovaThor L8540NOVATHOR™ L8540 28 nm ARMv7 1.85 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 PowerVR SGX 544 @ 500 MHzST-Ericsson announces new highly integrated LTE NovaThor platform Dual-channel LP-DDR2 LTE FDD/TDD, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, EDGE (integrated modem) Cancelled NovaThor L8580 (eQuad ) 28 nm FD-SOI ARMv7 2.5-3.0 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 PowerVR SGX 544 @600 MHz Dual-channel LP-DDR2 LTE FDD/TDD, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, EDGE (integrated modem) Cancelled
Similar platforms Atom by Intel Apple silicon by Apple Exynos by Samsung OMAP by Texas Instruments Qualcomm Snapdragon Tegra by Nvidia
Notes
References
External links Page on ST-Ericsson website about NovaThor. postmarketOS page for NovaThor phones - supports contemporary Linux kernels and userspace