ARM Interview about Cortex A17 Processor [Video]

When ARM announced their new Cortex A17 core, I could not quite understand why they would release another core with performance and features somewhat similar to Cortex A12 and Cortex A15. Charbax interviewed Nandan Nayampally, ARM VP of Processor Marketing, at Mobile World Congress 2014 and everything is much more clear now. Cortex A17 is based on A12, but adds support for big.LITTLE processing support with Cortex A7, and further improves performance. In some work loads Cortex A17 can currently match Cortex A15 performance, and by 2015, Cortex A17 will have performance similar to A15, and replace it in mid range devices as it has a lower footprint and lower cost. High-end products will switch to 64-Bit with Cortex A53 or A57 next year. The interviewee did not say this explicitly but it could be many companies will simply skip Cortex A12, and directly use Cortex A17, just like Rockchip […]

Rockchip RK3288 Specifications Released

Somebody working for a Chinese manufacturer informed me Rockchip RK3288 specifications have been released on rk3288.com. We’ve already known the application processor was based on a quad core Cortex A17 processor with a Mali-T76X GPU, but this website provides some more details which appears to have been taken from RK3288 technical reference manual. I can’t confirm the source nor the accuracy of the data, but I doubt somebody would have just put up something with detailed fake information. They mention RK3288 is an application processor destined to be used in high-end tablets, notebooks, all-in-one devices, smart monitors and TV Boxes, and that it features 4Kx2K support.. Let’s have a look at the details. CPU Quad-Core Cortex-A17 Separately Integrated Neon and FPU per CPU 32KB/32KB L1 ICache/DCache per CPU Unified 1MB L2 Cache LPAE (Large Physical Address Extensions), support up to 8GB address space Virtualization Extensions Support DVFS support 3D GPU […]

ARM Unveils Cortex A17 Processor, First Used in Mediatek MT6595 and Rockchip RK3288 SoCs

Finally all these ARM Cortex A17 marketing materials for Rockchip RK3288 were not some typos, but Rockchip marketing team may just have not received the memo reading “Confidential”, as ARM has now officially announced Cortex A17 processor based on ARMv7-A architecture, with support for big.LITTLE with Cortex A7, and that can be coupled with Mali-T720 mid-range GPU and Mali-V500 VPU. After Cortex A15, and Cortex A12, you may wonder “Why? But Why did ARM had to launch yet another new core?”. Here’s the company answer to that question: The Cortex-A17 processor offers 60% performance uplift over the Cortex-A9 processor, the current leader in mid-range mobile market, and betters the best efficiency enabling optimized solutions to address existing and new products. The Cortex-A17 processor is based on the popular ARMv7-A architecture, today’s most successful architecture in the mobile market. With over 1M apps supporting the ARMv7-A architecture, the Cortex-A17 processor is […]

Rockchip RK3288 vs RK3188 Performance Comparison

We were expecting some new processors at CES 2014, but this CES turned out to be mostly disappointing, and the vast majority of reporters present at the conference, do not seem interested in covering Chinese SoC vendors. Some information however surfaced on several foreign languages blogs and news sites about Rockchip RK3288. First, RK3288 is indeed based on ARM Cortex A12 as initially announced, and not some mysterious ARM Cortex A17 cores, but somebody at Rockchip likely made an embarrassing mistake, and Edward Weinert reported it was corrected at Rockchip booth with  pieces of paper as shown below. So Rockchip RK3288 has four of these Cortex A12 core, a 4L2K H.265 / HEVC video decoder, and an high-end Mali T764 T624 GPU supporting OpenGL ES3.0 and OpenCL 1.1 that vastly outperforms Mali-400 MP4 found in RK3188, and is even significantly faster than Adreno 330 GPU found in Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 […]

What to Expect from AllWinner, Rockchip, Mediatek, and Other Silicon Vendors at CES 2014

CES 2014 is coming soon, and it will take place on 7 – 10 January, 2014, and we can expect some interesting SoC news. Samsung suggested they will unveil their 64-bit ARM SoC (Exynos 6?) at CES 2014, Nvidia will hold a press conference to “showcase new NVIDIA Tegra mobile technologies, gaming innovations, and advanced automotive display technologies”, and Qualcomm has been quiet for now. However, several Chinese SoC vendors, namely AllWinner, Rockchip, and Mediatek, have already announced what they will showcase at CES 2014, albeit with few details. AllWinner at CES 2014 Allwinner announced will showcase their OptimusBoard based on their Ultra Octa-Core A80 SoC, as well as 4G tablets powered by Allwinner A31/A31s, and dual-SIM phablets sporting A23 dual-core. Allwinner A80 is an Octacore processor featuring four ARM Cortex A7 cores, and four Cortex A15 cores @ 2.0GHz together with an unnamed GPU offering 2x more performance over previous […]

Rockchip SoCs Comparison Table, RK32xx Quad Core Cortex A12 Coming Up in 2014

They guys at Linux Rockchip have setup a comparison table between Rockchip processors, but it’s not quite complete yet, and Rockchip noticed it, so they’ve just sent them the most recent Company Presentation that provides more details, including a roadmap. In this documentation, we can see the company targets different types of products with their SoCs: Android OTT dongle/box (aka mini PC, HDMI TV dongles…) – RK2928, RK3066, RK3068, and RK3188 Tablets – RK2926, RK2928, RK3028, RK3066, RK3168, and RK3188 EPD E-Book – RK2818, RK2906 and RK2918 MP3 player – RKnanoC On page 12 of the presentation, they have a convenient comparison table for the SoC used in mini PCs and Tablets. Series RK2926 /RK2928 RK3066 /RK3068 RK3168 RK3188 Process 55nm 40nm 28nm HKGM 28nm HKGM CPU Cortex A9 Dual Cortex A9 Dual Cortex A9 Quad Cortex A9 MAX CPU Frequency 1.0 GHz 1.6 GHz 1.2 GHz 1.6 GHz L1 […]

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