Google will offer at least three chip choices with Project Ara

Project Ara, Google’s modular smartphone project, will finally be available next year to any buyers who are excited about the prospect of being able to upgrade their smartphones’ hardware by themselves. And even better, it looks like the first Project Ara smartphones might be quite powerful. In an update on the Google+ Google ATAP channel a few days ago, head of Project Ara Paul Eremenko revealed more details about the progress of Google’s modular smartphone, including details about the processor used for Project Ara prototypes.

Ahead of the second Project Ara developer’s conference in January, Paul Ermenko, project head, has shared a few more details about what to expect from Google’s ambitious modular phone on his Google Plus page. One tidbit Eremenko revealed is that the Project Ara team has been working on a module that uses an Nvidia Tegra K1 processor, which comes from same line of chips that are used in Google’s Nexus 9 tablet. Google calls it an “application processor” or an “AP,” and it’s a module which houses the CPU, the GPU, RAM, cellular modem, and other core system components. There will also be an AP made with Marvell’s silicon, a company that makes decidedly lower-powered chipsets, including those that power Google’s Chromecast. The Marvell AP will use the PXA1928, which is a 64-bit quad-core chip based on ARM Cortex A53 cores.