The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore is a 32-bit multi-core processor that provides up to 4 cache-coherent cores, each implementing the ARM v7 architecture instruction set. It was introduced in 2007.
Features
Key features of the Cortex-A9 core are: Out-of-order speculative issue superscalar execution 8-stage pipeline giving 8.50 DMIPS/MHz/core. NEON SIMD 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 non-intrusive tracing of instruction execution. L2 cache controller (0–4 MB). Multi-core processing.
ARM states that the TSMC 40G hard macro implementation typically operates at 2 GHz; a single core (excluding caches) occupies less than 1.5 mm2 when designed for a 65 nanometer (nm) generic process and can be clocked at speeds over 1 GHz, consuming less than 250 mW per core. Without the limit of power consumption, the A9 can reach 3.1 GHz, on a proof-of-concept 28 nm chip.
Chips
Several system on a chip (SoC) devices implement the Cortex-A9 core, including: Altera SoC FPGA AMLogic AML8726-MIbh Apple A5, A5X Broadcom BCM11311 (Persona ICE) Calxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000 Entropic EN7588, EN7530 NXP Semiconductors (Formerly Freescale) QorIQ Layerscape LS1024A Freescale Semiconductor i.MX6 HiSilicon K3V2 -Hi3620 MediaTek MT6575 (single core), MT6577 (dual core) Mindspeed Technologies Mindspeed Comcerto 2000 Nufront NuSmart 2816, 2816M, 115 Nvidia Tegra 2 (without NEON extensions), Tegra 3 and Tegra 4i Trident Microsystems 847x/8x/9x SoC family Renesas Electronics RZ/A1H, M, L, LU Family Samsung Exynos 4210, 4212, 4412, 4415 Rockchip RK3066, RK292x, RK31xx STMicroelectronics SPEAr1310, SPEAr1340 ST-Ericsson Nova A9500, NovaThor U8500, NovaThor U9500 Texas Instruments OMAP4 processors Texas Instruments Sitara AM437x WonderMedia WM8850, WM8950 and WM8980 Xilinx Extensible Processing Platform ZiiLABS ZMS-20
Systems on a chip
Developer Name Cores Process NEON SIMD Vector floating point unit GPUAltera SoC FPGA 1–2 28 nm Optional, implemented via FPGAAmbarella Inc. S3L 1 28 nm AMLogic AML8726-M 1 65 nm ARM Mali-400AMLogic AML8726-MX 2 40 nm ARM Mali-400 MP2AMLogic AML8726-M8 4 28 nm ARM Mali-450 MP6Apple Inc. A5 2 32 nm45 nm PowerVR SGX543MP2Apple Inc. A5X 2 45 nm PowerVR SGX543MP4Broadcom BCM11311 (Persona ICE) 2 40 nm Broadcom Videocore IVBroadcom BCM21654 1 40 nm Broadcom Videocore IVBroadcom BCM21664T 2 40 nm Broadcom Videocore IVCalxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000 4 40 nm ELVEES Multicore 1892VM14Ya 2 40 nm ARM Mali-300Freescale Semiconductor i.MX6 1–4 40 nm Vivante Corporation GPU IP coresHiSilicon K3V2 (Hi3620) 4 40 nm Vivante GC4000Intel Cyclone V 1–2 28 nm LG Corp LG L9 2 ARM Mali-400 MP4Marvell ARMADA 38x 1–2 28 nm Marvell PXA986 2 45 nm PowerVR SGX540 / Vivante GC1000 (Galaxy Tab 3 7-inch)Marvell PXA988 2 45 nm Vivante GC1000MediaTek MT6575 1 40 nm PowerVR SGX531MediaTek MT6577 2 40 nm PowerVR SGX531Mindspeed Technologies Comcerto 2000 2 Nufront NuSmartTM 2816(NS2816) 2 ARM Mali-400Nufront NuSmartTM 2816M (NS2816M) 2 ARM Mali-400Nufront NuSmartTM 115 (NS115) 2 ARM Mali-400Nvidia Tegra 2 series 2 40 nm GeForce ULPNvidia Tegra 3 (Kal-El) series 4 40 nm GeForce ULPRenesas Electronics Renesas Electronics RZ/A1H 1 WXGA 2D graphics 10MByte RAM SoCRenesas Electronics RZ/A1M 1 WXGA 2D graphics 5MByte RAM SoCRenesas Electronics RZ/A1L 1 WXGA 2D graphics 3MByte RAM SoCRenesas Electronics RZ/A1LU 1 RZ/A1L plus Ethernet AVB support and a JPEG codec unit, 3MByte RAM SoC Rockchip RK2928 1 40 nm ARM Mali-400Rockchip RK3066 2 40 nm ARM Mali-400 MP4Rockchip RK3128 2 ARM Mali-400 MP4Rockchip RK3188 4 28 nm ARM Mali-400 MP4Samsung Exynos 4 Dual (4210) 2 45 nm ARM Mali-400 MP4Samsung Exynos 4 Dual (4212) 2 32 nm ARM Mali-400 MP4Samsung Exynos 4 Quad (4412) 4 32 nm ARM Mali-400 MP4Samsung Exynos 4 Quad (4415) 4 28 nm ARM Mali-400 MP4STMicroelectronics SPEAr1310 STMicroelectronics SPEAr1340 2 ARM Mali-200ST-Ericsson Nova A9500 2 45 nm ARM Mali-400ST-Ericsson NovaThor U8500 2 45 nm ARM Mali-400ST-Ericsson NovaThor U9500 2 45 nm ARM Mali-400Sony PlayStation Vita 4 40 nm PowerVR SGX543MP4+Texas InstrumentsSitara AM437x145 nmSGX530 Graphics EngineTexas Instruments OMAP4430OMAP4460 2 45 nm PowerVR SGX540Texas Instruments OMAP4470 2 45 nm PowerVR SGX544Trident Microsystems PNX8473 1 PowerVR SGX531Trident Microsystems PNX8483 1 PowerVR SGX531Trident Microsystems PNX8491 1 PowerVR SGX531WonderMedia WM8850 1 40 nm ARM Mali-400WonderMedia WM8880 2 40 nm ARM Mali-400 MP2WonderMedia WM8950 1 40 nm ARM Mali-400WonderMedia WM8980 2 40 nm ARM Mali-400 MP2Xilinx Zynq-7000 2 28 nm ZiiLABS ZMS-20 ZiiLABS flexible Stemcell media processing
See also
ARM architecture List of ARM cores List of applications of ARM cores Comparison of ARMv8-A cores JTAG
References
External links ARM Holdings
ARM Cortex-A9 Technical Reference Manuals Other White paper - The ARM Cortex-A9 Processors RISC vs. CISC in the mobile era
STMicroelectronics SPEAr1310 Data brief RM Cortex-A9 Popular ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore & Multi-core processor videos, YouTube. ARM Assembly language