Latest ARM processor Cortex-A73 depth evaluation

First, let us review: Since 2009, almost all smart phones have been equipped with ARM processors and their performance has increased by 100 times. Think about it, just seven years, 100 times, what an amazing number! Thanks to a significant increase in performance, new features, ultra-high-speed user interface responsiveness, and immersive user experience have become a reality, while power consumption remains the same, and the challenges in the field of mobile device design have been overcome. Needless to say, this is an unprecedented feat in the history of engineering technology.



High performance, new features and an optimized user experience continue to drive the rapid growth of the market. It is predicted that in 2016, global smartphone sales will exceed 1.5 billion units.

With the promotion of consumer trends, smart phone design has become an important platform for future innovation in many ways. Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), ultra-high-vision visualization, object-based audio processing technology, and computer vision all place higher demands on system performance. Similarly, smartphones have been pursuing more fiber in recent years. The thin body design, to a certain extent, sacrificed the heat dissipation performance, and also put forward higher requirements for power management. In addition, because the size of the smartphone has reached the limit of convenient operation, it means that the battery capacity cannot be increased by increasing the body size. In order to continue the glory of the smartphone industry in the past decade, further optimize the immersive user experience, and lead future innovation, we must continue to optimize performance and improve energy efficiency.

As of now, ARM has released its new high-performance processor, the Cortex-A73. Since the introduction of the Cortex-A72 processor last year, ARM has continued to accelerate the pace of innovation and introduced a new Cortex-A73 processor this year; this processor will be fully used in high-end smart phones in early 2017.

Thanks to exclusive design and optimization, the Cortex-A73 processor is tailored for mobile devices and other consumer electronic devices. The Cortex-A73 is particularly excited about the optimization of device performance and energy consumption:

• Excellent mobile power circuit performance up to 2.8GHz
• 30% increase in power efficiency to ensure the best user experience • Built into the smallest ARMv8-A architecture to date

In the early stages of product development, the Cortex-A73's goal has been very clear: to create the most energy efficient and powerful ARM processor.

Cortex-A73: ARMv8-A High Performance Processor

The Cortex-A73 processor fully supports the ARMv8-A architecture, and its feature set fits perfectly with smartphones and other consumer electronics devices. ARMv8-A architecture adopts ARM TrustZone technology, NEON technology, visualization and cryptography design. Whether the system is 32-bit or 64-bit, Cortex-A73 can support the widest range of mobile applications and middleware ecosystems (mobile software development and The optimization is based on the ARM architecture.)

The Cortex-A73 processor is equipped with a 128-bit AMBA 4 ACE interface, whether it is an energy-efficient Cortex-A53 for high-end design or a new ultra-high-efficiency Cortex-A35 for mid-range and cost-intensive designs, ARM big. The LITTLE system is perfectly compatible.

Best performance

The Cortex-A73 processor is tailored to the next generation of high-end smart phones. With a 10-nm process, the Cortex-A73 offers 30% better performance than the previous Cortex-A72 high-performance CPU. At 2.8 GHz, the Cortex-A73 is still robust and matches the continuous energy efficiency. As shown in the figure below, the Cortex-A73 can still guarantee normal operation near the peak frequency. Although the actual frequency of use will be limited and rarely run at full frequency, this test can still confirm the powerful performance of the Cortex-A73.


Optimized for mobile device performance

The Cortex-A73 processor supports 64kB instruction cache (branch prediction based on state-of-the-art algorithms) and high-performance instruction prefetch. The main performance optimization is a data storage system that uses advanced L1 and L2 data prefetching and supports complex mode detection. In addition, it also optimizes the memory buffer for continuous data write streams and increases the data cache to 64kB without any timing impact.

Compared to Cortext-A72, thanks to the above optimization and improvement, the performance of mobile applications running on the Cortex-A73 at the same frequency is up to 10%. The Cortex-A73-based chip design pushes the frequency optimization even further than previous generations. This is a bold attempt to improve performance. In addition, the Cortex-A73 processor is the new Cortex-A73 processor in all storage workload applications. The performance is improved by at least 15%, including multiple applications, operating system operations, and NEON complex computing execution.

Power optimization

Although the Cortex-A73 consumes less power than the Cortex-A72, its performance is greatly improved. The Cortex-A73 is substantially upgraded with clock gating, power-optimized RAM architecture, and AArch32/AArch64 optimized resource sharing execution to further reduce power consumption.

Compared to the Cortex-A72, the Cortex-A73 integer workload saves at least 20% power consumption; workload optimizations such as floating-point arithmetic and memory access are even more pronounced. The reduction in power consumption significantly improves the user experience and significantly extends battery life; at the same time, power optimization also saves more headroom for SoCs, improves system and graphics processor performance, achieves better visual effects, and improves frames. Rate, laying the foundation for the addition of new features.

The smallest ARM high-end CPU to date

In addition to achieving extremely high sustained and peak performance, the most significant feature of the Cortex-A73 is its ability to deliver the superior performance of ARMv8-A high-end processors in the smallest area, escorting the rising midrange smartphone market; and Realize the best user experience with low cost. Thanks to technological innovations, the new Cortex-A73 processor is smaller than the Cortex-A15 with ARMv7-A architecture. Specifically, the area of ​​the Cortex-A73 was reduced by 70% and 42%, respectively, compared to the Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A72. With reference to international standards, the Cortex-A73 core size is up to 25% lower than the Cortex-72. In addition to its role in advanced technology node applications such as 16nm and 10nm processes, the Cortex-A73 processor also shines at the mass market 28nm process technology node, dramatically increasing midrange mobile device performance. The reduction of the occupied area allows the device to carry more chips, integrate more functions or improve the performance of other system IPs, and can also reduce the SoC and equipment costs of mid-range mobile devices.

Improve the performance of mid-range smartphones

Using big.LITTLE technology and CoreLink CCI, ARM provides partners with excellent scalability, system optimization, and differentiated products. what does this mean? SoC designs can use 1 or 2 large cores and 2 or 4 small cores, and their performance and user experience can even be comparable to high-end designs. The exclusive L2 cache is reduced to 1MB, but it still guarantees sufficient cache to support the normal operation of large cores under real high performance workloads. Based on energy efficiency models, big.LITTLE software can be flexibly configured to meet the needs of different application environments.

At present, the big.LITTLE technology has been widely deployed in the mobile device market. Cortex-A73 and Cortex-A53 will jointly serve a new generation of smart phones, the most common way being integrated in eight-core processors. In addition, Cortex-A73 lays the foundation for improving the mid-end user experience. For example, a six-core big.LITTLE configuration, a dual-core Cortex-A73 processor, and a quad-core Cortex-A53 or Cortex-A35 processor can achieve better performance than an eight-core Cortex-A53 in an equivalent or smaller area. This topology is already very common and has been successfully applied to entry-level and mid-range devices. Due to the reduced response time of applications such as browsing web pages and scrolling interfaces, the Cortex-A73 six-core performance is improved by 30% and the single-threaded peak performance is doubled compared to the eight-core Cortex-A53, significantly improving the user experience.

The ARM design team continues to enhance the user experience and take full advantage of the unique features of ARM-based mobile devices: The Cortex-A73 processor is equipped to achieve better performance and longer battery life with less power consumption and less space. Later this year through 2017, the Cortex-A73 processor will gradually cover a range of consumer electronics devices such as our partners’ high-end smartphones, tablets, clamshell mobile devices, and digital televisions. Let us wait and see and witness the advent of these products!

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