Samsung Electronics and ARM, a mobile application processor designer, fine-tuned their plan to equip the upcoming Galaxy S5 smartphone with a 64-bit processor, sources said on Tuesday.

“Executives from Samsung and ARM had a meeting today. They discussed the ARM 64-bit chip, which is expected to be used in Samsung’s smartphone next year,” said a senior manager from the U.K.-based firm.

He added that “Cortex-M processors, which are used for products in the smart home system, might have been on the agenda.”

Participants in the meeting included Antonio Viana, ARM’s executive vice president of commercial and global development, who was in Seoul to attend the ARM Technology Symposia 2013 at Coex.

The ARM official also predicted that a 128-bit processor could hit the market in the next two years, but emphasized that it was just a possibility rather than a set plan.

“As technology moves from, for example, shifting to face recognition on smartphones from the fingerprint scanner to unlock an iPhone, it requires more powerful memory capacity,” he added.

Viana was delivering a speech focusing on connectivity and mobility in the future.

The U.K. firm commands almost 95 percent of the mobile application processor market, and is a leading supplier of microcontrollers, which enable interaction between products.

By Kim Young-won and Shin Ji-hye

(wone0102@heraldcorp.com)

(shinjh@heraldcorp.com)