Suite of IP from ARM targets low-power future premium mobile devices
At the heart of this suite is the ARM Cortex-A72 processor, which claims to be the highest performing CPU technology available for developing mobile SoCs today. In target configurations, the Cortex-A72 processor will deliver CPU performance that is 50x greater than the leading smartphones from just five years ago. The ARM premium mobile experience IP suite also offers a significant graphics upgrade generating a stunning visual experience for users at up to 4K120fps resolution. Devices with this latest industry-leading technology suite are expected to enter the market in 2016.
Alongside the Cortex-A72 processor is the CoreLink CCI-500 interconnect and the latest Mali-T880 GPU, the company’s highest performing and most energy-efficient mobile GPU, along with Mali-V550 video and Mali-DP550 display processors. To further ease chip implementation, the suite also includes ARM POP IP for the leading-edge TSMC 16nm FinFET+ process.
The premium mobile experience IP suite addresses the ever-increasing demands of end-users for their primary, always-connected mobile devices capable of creating, enhancing and consuming any content. For 2016 devices, ARM and its partners will boost the mobile experience associated with use cases such as:
- Immersive and sophisticated image and video capture, including 4K120fps video content;
- Console-class gaming performance and graphics;
- Productivity suites requiring fluid handling of documents and office applications;
- Natural language user interfaces capable of running natively on a smartphone.
More than ten partners, including HiSilicon, MediaTek and Rockchip, have already licensed the Cortex-A72 processor, which is based on the ARMv8-A architecture that delivers energy-efficient 64-bit processing while providing full backward compatibility to existing 32-bit software. The Cortex-A72 processor will deliver substantial benefits including:
- Sustained operation within the constrained mobile power envelope at frequencies of 2.5 GHz in a 16nm FinFET process and scalable to higher frequencies for deployment in larger form factor devices;
- 3.5x the performance of 2014 devices based on the Cortex-A15 processor;
- Improved energy efficiency that delivers a 75 percent reduction in energy consumption when matching performance of 2014 devices;
- Extended performance and efficiency when the Cortex-A72 CPU is combined with a Cortex-A53 CPU in ARM big.LITTLE™ processor configurations.
The CoreLink CCI-500 Cache Coherent Interconnect enables big.LITTLE processing and delivers system power savings thanks to an integrated snoop filter. CoreLink CCI-500 delivers double the peak memory system bandwidth and offers a 30 percent increase in processor memory performance compared to the previous generation CoreLink CCI-400. This enables more responsive user interfaces and accelerates memory intensive workloads such as productivity applications, video editing and multi-tasking. CoreLink CCI-500 fully supports ARM TrustZone® technology for a secure media path enabling protection of multimedia content when used with the Mali product family.
The latest Mali-T880 GPU delivers 1.8X the graphics performance of today’s Mali-T760 based devices and a 40 percent reduction in energy consumption across identical workloads. The Mali-T880 enables high-end, complex use cases to be enjoyed on power-constrained mobile and consumer platforms with its advances in energy efficiency, additional arithmetic capabilities and scalability. For mobile gamers, the result is a more advanced gaming and console-like experience. Native support for 10-bit YUV provides high fidelity for premium 4K content, complementing the Mali-V550 video processor and Mali-DP550 display processors.
Energy-efficiency continues to be the guiding design principle across the spectrum of the Mali product family, including a diverse set of proven, system-wide bandwidth reduction technologies. In premium device configurations, the Mali-V550 video processor fully supports HEVC decode and encode on a single core. In addition, it offers scalability up to 4K120fps with its full eight cores. The Mali-DP550 display processor offers enhanced capabilities for offloading tasks such as composition, scaling, rotation and image post-processing from the GPU to maximize battery life.
The latest POP IP for advanced TSMC 16nm FinFET+ enables any silicon vendor to migrate from 32/28nm process nodes with predictable performance, power results and time-to-market. ARM POP IP will enable Cortex-A72 processors to sustain 2.5 GHz in smartphones and scale to higher frequencies for larger form-factor devices in typical conditions. POP IP also supports implementations of the Mali-T880 for TSMC 16nm FinFET+.
The mobile ecosystem is already taking advantage of the benefits of ARMv8-A with the move to Google Android™ 5.0 Lollipop. The latest IP suite builds on this, enabling partners to deliver even more performance in the slimmest of form factors without compromising battery life. Over the course of 2015 and 2016, ARM expects significant adoption of Google Android 5.0 Lollipop in the premium mobile device market, further unleashing the capabilities of 64-bit ARMv8-A based CPUs. This opens the door for more application developers to take advantage of the doubling of SIMD multimedia (ARM NEON™ technology) and floating point performance, crypto instructions to protect consumers data and 4GB or higher memory support; delivering the next-generation premium mobile experience.
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
