The ARM Cortex-A72 is a
central processing unit
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...
implementing the
ARMv8-A
ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...
64-bit
instruction set
In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called a ...
designed by
ARM Holdings
Arm is a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England.
Its primary business is in the design of ARM processors (CPUs). It also designs other chips, provides software development tools under the DS-5, Real ...
'
Austin design centre. The Cortex-A72 is a 3-way decode
out-of-order superscalar
A superscalar 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 instruction per clock cycle, a sup ...
pipeline.
It is available as
SIP core to licensees, and its design makes it suitable for integration with other SIP cores (e.g.
GPU,
display controller
A video display controller or VDC (also called a display engine or display interface) is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computin ...
,
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 ...
, etc.) into one
die constituting a
system on a chip
A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memor ...
(SoC). The Cortex-A72 was announced in 2015 to serve as the successor of the
Cortex-A57, and was designed to use 20% less power or offer 90% greater performance.
Overview
* Pipelined processor with deeply
out-of-order,
speculative issue 3-way
superscalar
A superscalar 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 instruction per clock cycle, a sup ...
execution pipeline
* DSP and
NEON
Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypt ...
SIMD
Single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) is a type of parallel processing in Flynn's taxonomy. SIMD can be internal (part of the hardware design) and it can be directly accessible through an instruction set architecture (ISA), but it should ...
extensions are mandatory per core
*
VFPv4 Floating Point Unit onboard (per core)
*
Hardware virtualization
Hardware virtualization is the virtualization of computers as complete hardware platforms, certain logical abstractions of their componentry, or only the functionality required to run various operating systems. Virtualization hides the physic ...
support
*
Thumb-2
ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...
instruction set encoding reduces the size of 32-bit programs with little impact on performance.
*
TrustZone security extensions
* Program Trace Macrocell and CoreSight Design Kit for unobtrusive tracing of instruction execution
* 32 KiB data (2-way set-associative) + 48 KiB instruction (3-way set-associative) L1 cache per core
* Integrated low-latency level-2 (16-way set-associative) cache controller, 512 KB to 4 MB configurable size per cluster
* 48-entry fully associative L1 instruction translation lookaside buffer (TLB) with native support for 4 KiB, 64 KiB, and 1 MB page sizes
* 32-entry fully associative L1 data TLB with native support for 4 KiB, 64 KiB, and 1 MB page sizes
** 4-way set-associative of 1024-entry unified L2 TLB per core, supports hit-under-miss
* Sophisticated branch prediction algorithm that significantly increases performance and reduces energy from misprediction and speculation
* Early IC tag –3-way L1 cache at direct-mapped power*
* Regionalized TLB and μBTB tagging
* Small-offset branch-target optimizations
* Suppression of superfluous branch predictor accesses
Chips
*
Broadcom
Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...
BCM2711 (used in
Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic ...
4
)
*
Qualcomm Snapdragon
Snapdragon is a suite of system on a chip (SoC) semiconductor products for mobile devices designed and marketed by Qualcomm Technologies Inc. The Snapdragon's central processing unit (CPU) uses the ARM architecture. A single SoC may include m ...
650, 652, and 653
*
NXP i.MX8, Layerscape LS1046, LS2088, LX2160, LS1028
*
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...
Jacinto 7 family of automotive and industrial SoC processors.
*
Rockchip
Rockchip (Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd.) is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company based in Fuzhou, Fujian province. Rockchip has been providing SoC products for tablets & PCs, streaming media TV boxes, AI audio & vision, IoT hardware ...
RK3399
See also
*
ARM Cortex-A57
The ARM Cortex-A57 is a central processing unit implementing the ARMv8-A 64-bit instruction set designed by ARM Holdings. The Cortex-A57 is an out-of-order superscalar pipeline. It is available as SIP core to licensees, and its design makes it ...
, predecessor
*
ARM Cortex-A73
The ARM Cortex-A73 is a central processing unit implementing the ARMv8-A 64-bit instruction set designed by ARM Holdings' Sophia design centre. The Cortex-A73 is a 2-wide decode out-of-order superscalar pipeline. The Cortex-A73 serves as the suc ...
, successor
*
Comparison of ARMv8-A cores, ARMv8 family
References
External links
*
ARM Cortex-A72 Technical Reference Manuals
{{Application ARM-based chips
ARM processors