Arm introduced their first “Automotive Enhanced” processor with Cortex-A76AE last September. The processor targets autonomous driving applications, and comes with extra safety features such Dual Core Lock-Step (DCLS) running the same code on two different cores to continuously check the execution result is the same on both.
The company has now unveiled a second AE core with Cortex-A65AE, which Arm claims is the first multithreaded Automotive Enhanced Cortex-A CPU technology to deliver the highest safety levels with Dual Core Lock-Step (DCLS).
Arm Cortex-A65AE specifications:
- Architecture – Armv8-A (Harvard)
- Extensions – Armv8.1, Armv8.2, Cryptography, RAS, and Armv8.3 (LDAPR instructions only)
- ISA support – A64
- Microarchitecture
- Out-of-order Pipeline
- Superscalar
- NEON/Floating Point Unit
- Optional Cryptography Unit
- Max number of CPUs in cluster – Eight
- Physical Addressing (PA) – 44-bit
- Dual Core Lock-Step
- Memory system and external interfaces
- L1 I-Cache / D-Cache – 16KB to 64KB
- L2 Cache – 64KB to 256KB
- L3 Cache – Optional, 512KB to 4MB
- ECC Support, LPAE support
Yes - Bus interfaces – AMBA ACE or CHI
- Optional ACP
- Optional Peripheral Port
- Other
- Functional Safety Support – ASIL D diagnostics
- Security – TrustZone
- Interrupts – GIC interface, GICv4
- Generic Armv8-A timer
- PMUv3
- Debug – Armv8-A (plus Armv8.2-A extensions)
- CoreSight – CoreSightv3
- Embedded Trace Macrocell – ETMv4.2 (instruction trace)
The main benefit include high throughput performance with dual-threaded, out-of-order execution, split-Lock capability which offers the flexibility to operate in two modes: split mode for performance and lock mode for safety, and fault-tolerant operation in lock mode with DCLS. The processor is suitable for automotive, industrial automation, and aviation applications.
Compared to Cortex-A53, Arm Cortex A65AE delivers 70% improved integer performance per core, 3.5x higher memory throughput for memory intensive automotive workloads, and over 6x higher read bandwidth on low-latency ACP for closely-coupled accelerators. There’s no word whether a consumer Cortex-A65 will also become available.
More details can be found on the product page, and the developer website.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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