ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore

 

ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore

Designed by	ARM
Common manufacturer(s)	TSMC
Max. CPU clock rate	800 MHz  to 2000 MHz
Instruction set	ARMv7
Cores	1-4
L1 cache	32 kB I/32 kB D

 

The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore is a 32-bit multicore processor providing up to 4cache-coherent Cortex-A9 cores, each implementing theARM v7 instruction set architecture.^[1]

[edit]Features

Key features of the Cortex-A9 core are:^[2]

• Out-of-orderspeculative issuesuperscalar execution pipeline giving 2.50 DMIPS/MHz/core.
• NEONSIMD 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 unobtrusive tracing of instruction execution.
• L2 cache controller (0-4 MB).
• Dual-core processing.

ARM states that the TSMC 40G hard macro implementation typically operating at 2 GHz; a single core (excluding caches) occupies less than 1.5 mm² when designed in a TSMC 65 nanometer (nm) generic process^[3] and can be clocked at speeds over 1 GHz, consuming less than 250 mW per core.^[4]

[edit]Implementations

Several system-on-a-chips (SoC's) are implementing the Cortex-A9 core, including:

• Apple A5
• Calxeda
• Freescale Semiconductor i.MX6,^[5]
• Nufront NuSmartTM 2816^[6]
• Nvidia Tegra 2 series (without NEON extensions)
• Nvidia Tegra (Kal-El) series
• Trident Microsystems 847x/8x/9x SoC family^[7]
• Renesas Electronics EMMA Mobile/EV2
• Samsung Exynos 4210^[8]
• STMicroelectronics SPEAr1310^[9]
• ST Ericsson Nova A9500
• ST Ericsson NovaThor U8500^[10]
• ST Ericsson NovaThor U9500^[11]
• Texas Instruments OMAP4 processors
• Xilinx Extensible Processing Platform^[12]
• ZiiLABS ZMS-20^[13]

[edit]Overview of ARM Cortex-A9 SoCs

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Developed by	Name	NEON SIMD	Vector Floating Point Unit	GPU
Apple Inc.	A5	Yes	VFPv3	PowerVR SGX543MP2
Freescale Semiconductor	i.MX6[14]	Yes	VFPv3	Vivante Corporation GPU IP Cores[15]
Nufront	NuSmartTM 2816/NS2816	Yes	?	ARM Mali-400[16]
Nvidia	Tegra 2 series	No	VFPv3-D16	GeForce ULP
Nvidia	Tegra (Kal-El) series	Yes	VFPv3	GeForce ULP
Renesas Electronics	EMMA Mobile/EV2[17]	Yes	?	PowerVR SGX530
Trident Microsystems	PNX8473[18]	?	?	PowerVR SGX
Trident Microsystems	PNX8483[19]	?	?	PowerVR SGX
Trident Microsystems	PNX8491[20]	?	?	PowerVR SGX
Samsung	Exynos 4210	Yes	VFPv3	ARM Mali-400 MP
STMicroelectronics	SPEAr1340	No	VFPv3	ARM Mali-200[21]
ST Ericsson	Nova A9500	Yes	VFPv3	ARM Mali-400
ST Ericsson	NovaThor U8500	Yes	VFPv3	ARM Mali-400
ST Ericsson	NovaThor U9500	Yes	VFPv3	ARM Mali-400
Texas Instruments	OMAP4 series	Yes	VFPv3	PowerVR SGX540
Xilinx	Zynq-7000	?	?	?
ZiiLABS	ZMS-20	Yes	VFPv3	ZiiLABS flexible Stemcell media processing

[edit]ARM Cortex-A9 software development platforms

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Developed by	Name	SoC	RAM	ROM	SD	SATA	USB	Ethernet	Wi-Fi	Bluetooth	GPS	Accelerometer	Magnetometer	Gyroscope	Barometer
OrigenBoard	OrigenBoard [22]	Samsung Exynos 4210	1 GiB DDR3	-	2 Port SD/MMC Card Slot	-	embedded	-	SWB-A31	SWB-A31	-	-	-	-	-
PandaBoard	PandaBoard	TI OMAP4430[23]	1 GiB LP-DDR2	-	Full size SD/MMC card	-	LAN9514-JZX	LAN9514-JZX	LS240-WI-01-A20	LS240-WI-01-A20	-	-	-	-	-
Calao systems	Snowball[24]	ST-Ericsson Nova A9500[25]	1 GiB LP-DDR2	4 / 8GB e-MMC	microSD	-	FT232R	LAN9221	AW-NH580	AW-NH580	AW-NH580	LSM303DLH	LSM303DLH	L3G4200D	LPS001WP
Trim-Slice	Trim-Slice[26]	Tegra 2 series	1 GiB DDR2-667	-	Full size SD slot (SDHC) + microSD slot (SDHC)	GL830	embedded	RTL8111DL	RT3070	-	-	-	-	-	-