The ARM Cortex-A73 is a

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary Processor (computing), processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes Instruction (computing), instructions ...

implementing the ARMv8-A 64-bit

instruction set In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA) is an abstract model that generally defines how software controls the CPU in a computer or a family of computers. A device or program that executes instructions described by that ISA, s ...

ARM Holdings Arm Holdings plc (formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England, whose primary business is the design of central processing ...

' Sophia design centre. The Cortex-A73 is a 2-wide decode out-of-order

superscalar A superscalar processor (or multiple-issue processor) is a CPU that implements a form of parallelism called instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. In contrast to a scalar processor, which can execute at most one single in ...

pipeline. The Cortex-A73 serves as the successor of the Cortex-A72, designed to offer 30% greater performance or 30% increased power efficiency.

Design

The design of the Cortex-A73 is based on the

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in a maximum of 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform la ...

ARMv7-A Cortex-A17, emphasizing power efficiency and sustained peak performance. The Cortex-A73 is primarily targeted at

mobile computing Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage and allow for transmission of data, which can include voice and video transmissions. Mobile computing involves mobile commun ...

. In reviews, the Cortex-A73 showed improved

integer An integer is the number zero (0), a positive natural number (1, 2, 3, ...), or the negation of a positive natural number (−1, −2, −3, ...). The negations or additive inverses of the positive natural numbers are referred to as negative in ...

instructions per clock (IPC), though lower

floating point In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic on subsets of real numbers formed by a ''significand'' (a signed sequence of a fixed number of digits in some base) multiplied by an integer power of that base. Numbers of this form ...

IPC, relative to the Cortex-A72.

Licensing

The Cortex-A73 is available as SIP core to licensees, and its design makes it suitable for integration with other SIP cores (e.g. GPU, display controller, DSP,

image processor An image processor, also known as an image processing engine, image processing unit (IPU), or image signal processor (ISP), is a type of media processor or specialized digital signal processor (DSP) used for image processing, in digital cameras o ...

, etc.) into one die constituting a

system on a chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or Electronics, electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with computer memory, ...

(SoC). The Cortex-A73 is also the first ARM core to be modified through ARM's semi-custom 'Built on ARM' license. The Kryo 280 was the first released semi-custom product, though the modifications made relative to the stock Cortex-A73 were not announced.

Products

The

HiSilicon HiSilicon ( zh, c=海思, p=Hǎisī) is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province and wholly owned by Huawei. HiSilicon purchases licenses for CPU designs from ARM Holdings, including the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore ...

Kirin 960, released in 2016, utilizes 4 Cortex-A73 cores (clocked at 2.36 GHz) as the 'big' cores in a big.LITTLE arrangement with 4 'little'

ARM Cortex-A53 The ARM Cortex-A53 is one of the first two central processing units implementing the ARMv8-A 64-bit instruction set designed by ARM Holdings' Cambridge design centre, along with the Cortex-A57. The Cortex-A53 is a 2-wide decode superscalar p ...

cores. The MediaTek Helio X30 utilizes 2 Cortex-A73 cores (at 2.56 GHz) as the 'big' cores in deca-core big.LITTLE arrangement with 4 Cortex-A53 and 4 Cortex-A35 'little' cores. The Kryo 280, released in March 2017 by

Qualcomm Qualcomm Incorporated () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software and services related to wireless techn ...

in the Snapdragon 835, uses a modified Cortex-A73 core. The SoC utilizes 8 Kryo 280 cores in a big.LITTLE arrangement as two 4-core blocks, clocked at 2.456 GHz and 1.906 GHz. The modifications made by Qualcomm relative to the stock Cortex-A73 core are unknown, and the resulting Kryo 280 core demonstrated increased integer IPC. The Kryo 260 also used Cortex-A73 cores, though at lower clock speeds than the Kryo 280 and in combination with Cortex-A53 cores. The Cortex-A73 is also found in a wide range of mid-range chipsets such as the

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

Exynos The Samsung Exynos (stylized as SΛMSUNG Exynos), formerly Hummingbird (), is a series of ARM architecture, Arm-based System on a chip, system-on-chips developed by Samsung Electronics' System LSI division and manufactured by Samsung Foundry. I ...

7885, MediaTek Helio P series, and other HiSilicon Kirin models. Like the Snapdragon 636/660, most of these chipsets implement 4 A73 cores and 4 A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration, although some lower end models of Samsung chips implement only 2 A73 cores with 6 A53 cores.

References

{{Application ARM-based chips ARM processors

Design

Licensing

Products

See also

References