While major manufactures have already started using dual core processors in their smart phone’s, Nokia had been criticised for its underpowered phones. But now it seems like Nokia is in a mood to join the dual core processor race. After the partnership with Microsoft, and decided to add Windows Mobile 7 in their upcoming smart phone’s, Nokia is going to boost the processor speed too. In a statement given to Forbes by Carlo Bozotti, the Chief Executive of European semiconductor maker STMicroelectronics, Nokia will be using processors from ST-Ericsson for some of their devices.

Microsoft had laid out guidelines regarding hardware to be used for Windows Mobile during the launch in 2010. One of the guideline was to use at least 1 Ghz processor and most of the manufactures picked Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm in their smart phones. Use of ST-Ericsson processor in Nokia will mark a shift from Snapdragon processors even for other manufacturers.

Nova Thor U8500 will be the first processors that will go into some of the devices from Nokia. Nova Thor U8500 is based on ARM Dual Cortex A9 processor with ARM Mali 400 GPU for the 3D graphic support. It is reported that this processor would support multiple operating systems too. So in the near future we can expect smart phones that would be having either Nova Thor U8500 or Snapdragon dual core processor running on Windows Mobile 7 from Nokia.