46 / 84
46 l New-Tech Magazine Europe
1.
ARMv8
architectural
enhancements
2. Higher efficiency and performance
3. Scalability to target diverse
embedded markets
Let us look at some details for each
one of these key offerings.
1.
ARMv8-A
architectural
enhancements
Cortex-A32 is the only ARMv8-A
processor optimised for 32-bit
compute. As such, the Cortex-A32
offers an ARMv8 upgrade path for
applications that today use ARMv7-A
processors like Cortex-A5 and
Cortex-A7 or classic ARM processors
like ARM926 and ARM1176.
The ARMv8-A architecture supports
improvements and power reduction,
two often conflicting design goals
that the Cortex-A32 team managed
to deliver in tandem.
The Cortex-A32 also delivers
performance
improvements
compared to Cortex-A5 and
Cortex-A7
processors.
The
performance improvements relative
to the Cortex-A5 range from 30% to
a massive1300% across a range of
benchmarks relevant to embedded
markets. Streaming and crypto
are key benchmarks at the top
end of this scale. Compared to the
Cortex-A7, the Cortex-A32 offers
5% to 25% higher performance.
To put things in perspective,
the Cortex-A32 delivers similar
performance to the Cortex-A9,
which was the premium smartphone
standard just a few years ago. That
performance is coming to the lowest
cost rich embedded devices now,
and at significantly less power.
For integer workloads, the
combination
of
performance
improvements and power reduction
provided by the Cortex-A32
translates into a greater than 25%
efficiency gain over the Cortex-A7
and more than 30% efficiency gain
over the Cortex-A5. Compared to
Cortex-A35, the Cortex-A32 offers
same 32-bit performance but
consumes 10% less power and has
a 13% smaller core. This means that
Cortex-A32 is 10% more efficient
than Cortex-A35 processor in the
32-bit world.
Scalability
Given the diversity of embedded
both 32-bit and 64-bit compute
capabilities in the AArch32
and AArch64 execution states.
Cortex-A32 is optimized to support
the A32/T32 instruction set in the
AArch32 execution state, which
is ideal for 32-bit rich embedded
applications that need the lowest
cost and power. Even in AArch32,
ARMv8-A adds more than 100 new
instructions – and the Cortex-A32
benefits from all of these.
2. Higher efficiency and performance
Cortex-A32 is 25% more efficient
(more performance per mW) than
Cortex-A7 in the same process
node. Cortex-A32 delivers this
efficiency through performance