Just in time to set the stage for Intel’s Developer Forum, which will open its doors next week and will bring new information about its upcoming Atom processors, ARM has announced its next-generation Cortex processor design, which will run at up to 2.5 GHz with eight or more cores, but will be limited to 1.5 GHz and two cores in smartphone configurations.

ARM said that its Cortex-A15 MPCore processor will be delivering five times more performance than current architectures, which is rather stunning as Samsung just announced a 1 GHz dual-core ARM design based on the current Cortex-A9 foundation, which Samsung claims will deliver, in combination with a new GPU, five times the 3D performance of current smartphone chips.

While ARM did not say when its partners will actually building Cortex-A15 processors, Samsung and TI are among those who are quoted in a press release and are apparently planning on adopting ARM’s blueprints. ARM said that the A15 is targeted at a manufacturing process of 32 nm and 28 nm, but will eventually extend to 20 nm as well.

The chip will be able to support clock speeds up to 1.5 GHz and up to two cores for smart phones, up to 2.5 GHz and four cores in digital home equipment and home/web servers, as well as 2.5 GHz in wireless equipment with eight or more cores. The A15 is based on the ARMv7-A Cortex architecture and will be ARM’s first processor to support hardware virtualization.

Dual-core is clearly the name of the game for future smartphones, but it appears that we still have to wait for the arrival of such phones. Samsung’s Orion chip will not mass-manufactured until Q4 and is unlikely to be in phones until mid to late 2011. Today we read that Qualcomm’s dual-core 1.5 GHz chip will not be available until late Q4 as well. So if you are looking for a smartphone with a fast processor, it may not be worth your time to wait for a dual-core device just yet.

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