ARM Cortex-A15
{{Short description|Family of microprocessor cores with ARM microarchitecture}}
{{Infobox CPU
|name = ARM Cortex-A15
|image = 200px
|image_size = Exynos 5250 on an Arndale Board
|caption =
|produced-start = In production late 2011,[http://www.anandtech.com/show/4153/ti-reveals-omap-5-the-first-arm-cortex-a15-soc TI Reveals OMAP 5: The First ARM Cortex A15 SoC] to market late 2012{{Cite web |url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/225624/arm_expects_first_cortexa15_devices_in_late_2012.html#tk.rss_news |title=ARM Expects First Cortex-A15 Devices in Late 2012 |access-date=2011-05-22 |archive-date=2011-06-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110625002618/http://www.pcworld.com/article/225624/arm_expects_first_cortexa15_devices_in_late_2012.html#tk.rss_news |url-status=dead }}
|produced-end =
|slowest = 1.0 GHz
|fastest = 2.5 GHz
|slow-unit =
|fast-unit =
|fsb-slowest =
|fsb-fastest =
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|size-from = 32 nm/28 nm initially[http://arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-unveils-cortex-a15-mpcore-processor-to-dramatically-accelerate-capabilities.php ARM Unveils Cortex-A15 MPCore Processor to Dramatically Accelerate Capabilities of Mobile, Consumer and Infrastructure Applications] — in the Supporting Technology section
|size-to = 22 nm roadmap
|soldby =
|designfirm = ARM Holdings
|manuf1 =
|core1 =
|sock1 =
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|brand1 =
|arch = ARMv7-A
|cpuid =
|code =
|numcores = 1–4 per cluster, 1–2 clusters per physical chip{{Cite web |url=http://mobile.arm.com/products/system-ip/interconnect/axi/index.php |title=CoreLink Network Interconnect for AMBA AXI |access-date=2011-05-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110405131223/http://mobile.arm.com/products/system-ip/interconnect/axi/index.php |archive-date=2011-04-05 |url-status=dead }}
|l1cache = 64 KB (32 KB I-cache, 32 KB D-cache) per core
|l2cache = Up to 4 MB[http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a15.php Cortex-A15 Processor] — Product description per cluster
|l3cache = none
|application =
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}}
The ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore is a 32-bit processor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture. It is a multicore processor with out-of-order superscalar pipeline running at up to 2.5 GHz.[http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a15.php ARM Cortex-A15 - ARM Processor]
Overview
{{Main article|Comparison of ARMv7-A cores}}
ARM has claimed that the Cortex-A15 core is 40 percent more powerful than the Cortex-A9 core with the same number of cores at the same speed.[http://www.itproportal.com/2011/03/14/exclusive-arm-cortex-a15-40-cent-faster-cortex-a9/ Exclusive : ARM Cortex-A15 "40 Per Cent" Faster Than Cortex-A9] The first A15 designs came out in the autumn of 2011, but products based on the chip did not reach the market until 2012.
Key features of the Cortex-A15 core are:
- 40-bit Large Physical Address Extensions (LPAE) addressing up to 1 TB of RAM with a 32-bit virtual address space.{{Cite web |last=Morgan |first=Timothy Prickett |title=Calxeda plots server dominance with ARM SoCs |url=https://www.theregister.com/2012/10/17/calxeda_arm_server_chip_roadmap/ |access-date=2023-06-23 |website=www.theregister.com |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=ARM: Add support for the Large Physical Address Extensions [LWN.net] |url=https://lwn.net/Articles/444559/ |access-date=2023-06-23 |website=lwn.net}}{{cite web |url=https://www.eetimes.com/arm7-40-bit-virtualization/ |title=ARM7 40-bit, virtualization |first=Rick |last=Merritt |date=23 August 2010 |website=EE Times}}
- 15 stage integer/17–25 stage floating point pipeline, with out-of-order speculative issue 3-way superscalar execution pipeline[http://www.arm.com/files/pdf/AT-Exploring_the_Design_of_the_Cortex-A15.pdf Exploring the Design of the Cortex-A15 Processor] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131112111121/http://www.arm.com/files/pdf/AT-Exploring_the_Design_of_the_Cortex-A15.pdf |date=2013-11-12 }} Travis Lanier
- 4 cores per cluster, up to 2 clusters per chip with CoreLink 400 (CCI-400, an AMBA-4 coherent interconnect) and 4 clusters per chip with CCN-504.[http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a15.php "ARM A15 web page, Specification tab"] ARM provides specifications but the licensees individually design ARM chips, and AMBA-4 scales beyond 2 clusters. The theoretical limit is 16 clusters; 4 bits are used to code the CLUSTERID number in the CP15 register (bits 8 to 11).[http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.arm.doc.ddi0438e/BABJCIJJ.html "Cortex-A15 MPCore Technical Reference Manual"]
- DSP and NEON SIMD extensions onboard (per core)
- VFPv4 Floating Point Unit onboard (per core)
- Hardware virtualization support
- Thumb-2 instruction set encoding to reduce the size of programs with little impact on performance
- TrustZone security extensions
- Jazelle RCT for JIT compilation
- Program Trace Macrocell and CoreSight Design Kit for unobtrusive tracing of instruction execution
- 32 KB data + 32 KB instruction L1 cache per core
- Integrated low-latency level-2 cache controller, up to 4 MB per cluster
Chips
First implementation came from Samsung in 2012 with the Exynos 5 Dual, which shipped in October 2012 with the Samsung Chromebook Series 3 (ARM version), followed in November by the Google Nexus 10.
Press announcements of current implementations:
- Broadcom SoC[https://archive.today/20130505153526/http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/2/17/broadcom-announces-plans-arms-cortex-a15-soc/ Broadcom announces plans for ARM's Cortex-A15 SoC | thinq]
- HiSilicon K3V3[http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Huawei-HiSilicon-K3V3-Chipset-Smartphones,20327.html Huawei Announces HiSilicon K3V3 Chipset For Smartphones] on Tom's Hardware
- Nvidia Tegra 4 (Wayne)[https://web.archive.org/web/20110107082331/http://pressroom.nvidia.com/easyir/customrel.do?easyirid=A0D622CE9F579F09&version=live&prid=705184&releasejsp=release_157&xhtml=true NVIDIA Announces "Project Denver" to Build Custom CPU Cores Based on ARM Architecture, Targeting Personal Computers to Supercomputers - NVIDIA Newsroom] and Tegra K1.
- Samsung Exynos 5 Dual, Quad and Octa[http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/newsView.do?news_id=1267 Samsung Announces Industry First ARM Cortex-A15 Processor Samples for Tablet Computers]
- ST-Ericsson Nova A9600 (cancelled) (dual-core @ 2.5 GHz over 20k DMIPS)[http://www.stericsson.com/press_releases/NovaThor.jsp Changing the game: ST-Ericsson Unveils NovaThor Family of Smartphone Platforms Combining its Most Advanced Application Processors with the Latest Generation of Modems] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130618091608/http://stericsson.com/press_releases/NovaThor.jsp |date=2013-06-18 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.itproportal.com/2011/03/14/exclusive-arm-cortex-a15-40-cent-faster-cortex-a9/ |title=Exclusive : ARM Cortex-A15 "40 Per Cent" Faster Than Cortex-A9 |author=Desire Athow |date=14 March 2011 |access-date=2011-01-22}}
- Texas Instruments OMAP 5 SoCs{{Cite web |url=http://www.ti.com/ww/en/omap/omap5/omap5-platform.html?DCMP=OMAP5&HQS=Other+PR+wbu_omap5_pr_v |title=OMAP Applications Processors - OMAP 5 Platform |access-date=2011-06-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110212015509/http://www.ti.com/ww/en/omap/omap5/omap5-platform.html?DCMP=OMAP5&HQS=Other+PR+wbu_omap5_pr_v |archive-date=2011-02-12 |url-status=dead }} and Sitara AM57x family[http://newscenter.ti.com/2015-10-14-TI-disrupts-the-embedded-market-with-the-most-powerful-SoCs-featuring-real-time-processing-and-multimedia TI disrupts the embedded market with the most powerful SoCs featuring real-time processing and multimedia]
Other licensees, such as LG,[http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/lg-electronics-licenses-arm-processor-technology-to-drive-platform-strategy-in-home-and-mobile-markets.php LG Electronics Licenses ARM Processor Technology to Drive - ARM][http://www.itproportal.com/2011/04/26/why-lg-getting-arm-cortex-a15-license-big-deal/ Why LG Getting ARM Cortex A15 License Is A Big Deal | ITProPortal.com] are expected to produce an A15 based design at some point.
=Systems on a chip=
See also
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- {{Official website|http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a15.php}}
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{{Application ARM-based chips}}
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