Encyclopedia
ARM Cortex-A9
32-bit multicore processor developed by SR1
The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore is a 32-bit multi-core processor that provides up to 4 cache-coherent cores, each implementing the ARM v7 architecture instruction set. It was introduced in 2007.
01Features
Key features of the Cortex-A9 core are:
- Out-of-order speculative issue superscalar execution 8-stage pipeline giving 8.50 DMIPS/MHz/core.
- NEON SIMD instruction set extension performing up to 16 operations per instruction (optional).
- High performance VFPv3 floating point unit doubling the performance of previous ARM FPUs (optional).
- Thumb-2 instruction set encoding reduces the size of programs with little impact on performance.
- TrustZone security extensions.
- Jazelle DBX support for Java execution.
- Jazelle RCT for JIT compilation.
- Program Trace Macrocell and CoreSight Design Kit for non-intrusive tracing of instruction execution.
- L2 cache controller (0-4 MB).
- Multi-core processing.
ARM states that the TSMC 40G hard macro implementation typically operates at 2 GHz; a single core (excluding caches) occupies less than 1.5 mm2 when designed for a 65 nanometer (nm) generic process and can be clocked at speeds over 1 GHz, consuming less than 250 mW per core. Without the limit of power consumption, the A9 can reach 3.1 GHz, on a proof-of-concept 28 nm chip.
02Chips
Several system on a chip (SoC) devices implement the Cortex-A9 core, including:
- Altera SoC FPGA
- AMLogic AML8726-M
- Apple A5, A5X
- Broadcom BCM11311 (Persona ICE)
- Calxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000
- Entropic EN7588, EN7530
- NXP Semiconductors (Formerly Freescale) QorIQ Layerscape LS1024A
- Freescale Semiconductor i.MX6
- HiSilicon K3V2 -Hi3620
- MediaTek MT6575 (single core), MT6577 (dual core)
- Mindspeed Technologies Mindspeed Comcerto 2000
- Nufront NuSmart 2816, 2816M, 115
- Nvidia Tegra 2 (without NEON extensions), Tegra 3 and Tegra 4i
- Trident Microsystems 847x/8x/9x SoC family
- Renesas Electronics RZ/A1H, M, L, LU Family
- Samsung Exynos 4210, 4212, 4412, 4415
- Rockchip RK3066, RK292x, RK31xx
- STMicroelectronics SPEAr1310, SPEAr1340
- ST-Ericsson Nova A9500, NovaThor U8500, NovaThor U9500
- Texas Instruments OMAP4 processors
- Texas Instruments Sitara AM437x
- WonderMedia WM8850, WM8950 and WM8980
- Xilinx Extensible Processing Platform
- ZiiLABS ZMS-20
Systems on a chip
| Developer | Name | Cores | Process | NEON SIMD | Vector floating point unit | GPU |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Altera | SoC FPGA | 1-2 | 28 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | Optional, implemented via FPGA |
| Ambarella Inc. | S3L | 1 | 28 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | , |
| AMLogic | AML8726-M | 1 | 65 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 |
| AMLogic | AML8726-MX | 2 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 MP2 |
| AMLogic | AML8726-M8 | 4 | 28 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-450 MP6 |
| Apple Inc. | A5 | 2 | 32 nm 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | PowerVR SGX543MP2 |
| Apple Inc. | A5X | 2 | 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | PowerVR SGX543MP4 |
| Broadcom | BCM11311 (Persona ICE) | 2 | 40 nm | ? | ? | Broadcom Videocore IV |
| Broadcom | BCM21654 | 1 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | Broadcom Videocore IV |
| Broadcom | BCM21664T | 2 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | Broadcom Videocore IV |
| Calxeda | EnergyCore ECX-1000 | 4 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | , |
| ELVEES Multicore | 1892VM14Ya | 2 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-300 |
| Freescale Semiconductor | i.MX6 | 1-4 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3-D32 | Vivante Corporation GPU IP cores |
| HiSilicon | K3V2 (Hi3620) | 4 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | Vivante GC4000 |
| Intel | Cyclone V | 1-2 | 28 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | , |
| LG Corp | LG L9 | 2 | ? | ? | ? | ARM Mali-400 MP4 |
| Marvell | ARMADA 38x | 1-2 | 28 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | , |
| Marvell | PXA986 | 2 | 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | PowerVR SGX540 / Vivante GC1000 (Galaxy Tab 3 7-inch) |
| Marvell | PXA988 | 2 | 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | Vivante GC1000 |
| MediaTek | MT6575 | 1 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | PowerVR SGX531 |
| MediaTek | MT6577 | 2 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | PowerVR SGX531 |
| Mindspeed Technologies | Comcerto 2000 | 2 | ? | Yes | ? | , |
| Nufront | NuSmartTM 2816(NS2816) | 2 | ? | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 |
| Nufront | NuSmartTM 2816M (NS2816M) | 2 | ? | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 |
| Nufront | NuSmartTM 115 (NS115) | 2 | ? | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 |
| Nvidia | Tegra 2 series | 2 | 40 nm | No | VFPv3-D16 | GeForce ULP |
| Nvidia | Tegra 3 (Kal-El) series | 4 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | GeForce ULP |
| Renesas Electronics | ? | ? | ? | ? | , | |
| Renesas Electronics | RZ/A1H | 1 | various | Yes | VFPv3 | WXGA 2D graphics 10MByte RAM SoC |
| Renesas Electronics | RZ/A1M | 1 | various | Yes | VFPv3 | WXGA 2D graphics 5MByte RAM SoC |
| Renesas Electronics | RZ/A1L | 1 | various | Yes | VFPv3 | WXGA 2D graphics 3MByte RAM SoC |
| Renesas Electronics | RZ/A1LU | 1 | various | Yes | VFPv3 | RZ/A1L plus Ethernet AVB support and a JPEG codec unit, 3MByte RAM SoC |
| Rockchip | RK2928 | 1 | 40 nm | ? | ? | ARM Mali-400 |
| Rockchip | RK3066 | 2 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 MP4 |
| Rockchip | RK3128 | 2 | ? | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 MP4 |
| Rockchip | RK3188 | 4 | 28 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 MP4 |
| Samsung | Exynos 4 Dual (4210) | 2 | 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 MP4 |
| Samsung | Exynos 4 Dual (4212) | 2 | 32 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 MP4 |
| Samsung | Exynos 4 Quad (4412) | 4 | 32 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 MP4 |
| Samsung | Exynos 4 Quad (4415) | 4 | 28 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 MP4 |
| STMicroelectronics | SPEAr1310 | ? | ? | No | VFPv3 | , |
| STMicroelectronics | SPEAr1340 | 2 | ? | No | VFPv3-D16 | ARM Mali-200 |
| ST-Ericsson | Nova A9500 | 2 | 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 |
| ST-Ericsson | NovaThor U8500 | 2 | 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 |
| ST-Ericsson | NovaThor U9500 | 2 | 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 |
| Sony | PlayStation Vita | 4 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | PowerVR SGX543MP4+ |
| Texas Instruments | Sitara AM437x | 1 | 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | SGX530 Graphics Engine |
| Texas Instruments | OMAP4430 OMAP4460 | 2 | 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | PowerVR SGX540 |
| Texas Instruments | OMAP4470 | 2 | 45 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | PowerVR SGX544 |
| Trident Microsystems | PNX8473 | 1 | ? | ? | ? | PowerVR SGX531 |
| Trident Microsystems | PNX8483 | 1 | ? | ? | ? | PowerVR SGX531 |
| Trident Microsystems | PNX8491 | 1 | ? | ? | ? | PowerVR SGX531 |
| WonderMedia | WM8850 | 1 | 40 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | ARM Mali-400 |
| WonderMedia | WM8880 | 2 | 40 nm | ? | ? | ARM Mali-400 MP2 |
| WonderMedia | WM8950 | 1 | 40 nm | ? | ? | ARM Mali-400 |
| WonderMedia | WM8980 | 2 | 40 nm | ? | ? | ARM Mali-400 MP2 |
| Xilinx | Zynq-7000 | 2 | 28 nm | Yes | VFPv3 | , |
| ZiiLABS | ZMS-20 | ? | ? | Yes | VFPv3 | ZiiLABS flexible Stemcell media processing |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “ARM Cortex-A9”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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