As expected, Nokia Corp. and ST-Ericsson announced on Wednesday that the smartphone giant will use NovaThor platform for its next-generation Windows Phone products. Thanks to dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 system-on-chip Nokia hopes to "extend Windows Phone devices to new price points and geographies" as a result of more powerful hardware.

“We are pleased to have been selected by Nokia as a key partner for Windows smartphones, in line with our goal to be present in all segments and major operating systems. Our NovaThor platforms continue to gain traction as they enable customers to bring great smartphones to the market,” said Gilles Delfassy, president and CEO of ST-Ericsson.

While Nokia and ST-Ericsson did not reveal which new Nokia Windows Phone smartphones will be powered by NovaThor system-on-chips, previously it was reported that those SoCs will be used for Windows Phone 8-based products. There are also reports that Windows Phone 8 "Apollo" will finally be able to take advantage of several general-purpose processing cores.

The ST-Ericsson NovaThor U8500 - currently the most advanced smartphone SoC from ST-E - features two ARM Cortex-A9 processing engines as well as Mali 400 graphics technology. The SoC supports full-HD playback, accelerated 3D graphics, support for high resolution touch-screens, two cameras, GSM/EDGE/3G/3.5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM and so on. With the new SoC, Nokia's WP8 phones will be able to match modern handsets like Apple iPhone 4S or Samsung Galaxy S II in terms of horsepower.

Microsoft Windows Phone 8 "Apollo" is projected to be launched in August, 2012.

Tags: Nokia, ST-Ericsson, Qualcomm, Windows Phone, Microsoft, STMicroelectronics