Cortex-A15 Processor

(View Larger Cortex-A15 Processor Image)The ARM Cortex™-A15 MPCore™ processor is today’s high-performance engine for your highly-connected device. This processor delivers unprecedented flexibility and processing capability. As with ARM’s heritage, this processor is designed with advanced power reduction techniques, and enables compelling products in a wide range of new and existing ARM markets ranging from mobile computing, high-end digital home, servers and wireless infrastructure.

Optimized Performance

The ARM philosophy is that one size does not fit all. Mobile performance has two opposite targets – responsiveness / frame rate for gaming and web surfing coupled with maximizing the battery life so that a truly un-tethered experience is reality. Mobile configurations of the Cortex-A15 MPCore processor, which will include the Cortex-A7 MPCore processor and CCI-400 to tie them together, are expected to deliver over twice the performance of today’s top-of-the-line smartphones and over 4 times the aggregate performance of ARM processor-based infrastructure platforms, combined with ARM's signature low power consumption.

To answer the call to meet both targets simultaneously, ARM has answered with big.LITTLE technology. By offering a ‘right core for the right task’ solution, ARM can offer a major technology inflection point. ARM’s big.LITTLE technology assigns background and light tasks to the “LITTLE” core and the primary larger tasks to the “big” core. Not only does this allow the larger core to operate more efficiently because it is not trying to context switch all the time to cover the light threads, the consumer wins with greatly increased battery life while realizing the top-end performance that can be greater than what a Cortex-A15 MPCore processor can do by itself. Listed below are examples of expected application-specific implementations:

Smartphone and Mobile Computing
	Usage range: big.LITTLE featuring dual or quad core Cortex A7 MPCore processors paired with single or dual core Cortex-A15 MPCore processors at ~1.5GHz Pair with CCI-400 and Cortex-A7 Pair with Mali graphics and DMC-400 for a complete solution 1 GHz – 1.5 GHz single or dual-core configurations Device characteristics: Elastic performance: Instant web-browsing, high-bandwidth operation Increasing media and floating-point performance Optimum power: Extended low-power range and better battery life Richer experience: Console-quality gaming, navigation, augmented reality applications

Smartphone and Mobile Computing

Usage range:

big.LITTLE featuring dual or quad core Cortex A7 MPCore processors paired with single or dual core Cortex-A15 MPCore processors at ~1.5GHz
Pair with CCI-400 and Cortex-A7
Pair with Mali graphics and DMC-400 for a complete solution 1 GHz – 1.5 GHz single or dual-core configurations

Device characteristics:

Elastic performance:
- Instant web-browsing, high-bandwidth operation
- Increasing media and floating-point performance
Optimum power:
- Extended low-power range and better battery life
Richer experience:
- Console-quality gaming, navigation, augmented reality applications

Digital Home Entertainment
	Usage range: 1 GHz – 1.5 GHz dual-core configurations paired with NIC-401 1.5 GHz – 2.0 GHz dual-core or quad core configurations paired with CCI-400 and Mali-T600 GPU This configuration ensures I/O coherency Device characteristics: High-end performance: General-purpose and media performance Intensive streaming, Media and graphics and compute workloads Optimum power, thermals: Fan-less operation, EnergyStar Larger physical memory: Increases user experience as the system can now support more than 4GB of memory attached

Digital Home Entertainment

Usage range:

1 GHz – 1.5 GHz dual-core configurations paired with NIC-401
1.5 GHz – 2.0 GHz dual-core or quad core configurations paired with CCI-400 and Mali-T600 GPU
This configuration ensures I/O coherency

Device characteristics:

High-end performance:
- General-purpose and media performance
- Intensive streaming,
- Media and graphics and compute workloads
Optimum power, thermals:
- Fan-less operation, EnergyStar
Larger physical memory:
- Increases user experience as the system can now support more than 4GB of memory attached

Home and Web 2.0 Servers
	Usage range: 1.5GHz – 2.5 GHz quad-core to octal core configurations, paired with CCI-400 Device characteristics: High Performance: High-end Power-efficient single-thread and MP High Extensibility: Coherency for SoC, for performance and power-efficiency Multiple cores efficiently handle multiple tasks for home servers Virtualization support: Efficient virtual machines supported and access to more than 4GB of physical memory

Home and Web 2.0 Servers

Usage range:

1.5GHz – 2.5 GHz quad-core to octal core configurations, paired with CCI-400

Device characteristics:

High Performance:
- High-end Power-efficient single-thread and MP
High Extensibility:
- Coherency for SoC, for performance and power-efficiency
- Multiple cores efficiently handle multiple tasks for home servers
Virtualization support:
- Efficient virtual machines supported and access to more than 4GB of physical memory

Wireless Infrastructure
	Usage range: 1.5GHz – 2.5 GHz quad-core, octal-core or larger configurations using CCI-400 or CCN-504 1.5GHz – 2.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 MPCore paired with 1.0GHz – 1.5GHz Cortex-A7 MPCore using CCI-400 Device characteristics: Performance: High-end integer, floating point performance Scalability: “Mega-integration” > 4 cores. Lower TCO. Large memory devices: Support for up to 1TB, h/w virtualization support Reliability: Error correction, soft-fault recovery, monitoring for device integrity

Wireless Infrastructure

Usage range:

1.5GHz – 2.5 GHz quad-core, octal-core or larger configurations using CCI-400 or CCN-504
1.5GHz – 2.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 MPCore paired with 1.0GHz – 1.5GHz Cortex-A7 MPCore using CCI-400

Device characteristics:

Performance:
- High-end integer, floating point performance
Scalability:
- “Mega-integration” > 4 cores. Lower TCO.
Large memory devices:
- Support for up to 1TB, h/w virtualization support Reliability: Error correction, soft-fault recovery, monitoring for device integrity