The ARM Cortex-A8 is a
32-bit processor core licensed by
ARM Holdings implementing the
ARMv7-A architecture.
Compared to the
ARM11
ARM11 is a group of 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by ARM Holdings. The ARM11 core family consists of ARM1136J(F)-S, ARM1156T2(F)-S, ARM1176JZ(F)-S, and ARM11MPCore. Since ARM11 cores were released from 2002 to 2005, they are no lon ...
, the Cortex-A8 is a dual-issue
superscalar design, achieving roughly twice the
instructions per cycle
In computer architecture, instructions per cycle (IPC), commonly called instructions per clock is one aspect of a processor's performance: the average number of instructions executed for each clock cycle. It is the multiplicative inverse of c ...
. The Cortex-A8 was the first Cortex design to be adopted on a large scale in consumer devices.
Features
Key features of the Cortex-A8 core are:
* Frequency from 600 MHz to 1 GHz and above
*
Superscalar dual-issue microarchitecture
*
NEON 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 shoul ...
instruction set extension
[Cortex-A8 Specification Summary; ARM Holdings.](_blank)
/ref>
* 13-stage integer pipeline
Pipeline may refer to:
Electronics, computers and computing
* Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on
** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...
and 10-stage NEON pipeline 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, configure ...
instruction set encoding
* Jazelle RCT
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, configure ...
(Also known as ThumbEE instruction set)
* Advanced branch prediction unit with >95% accuracy
* Integrated level 2 Cache (0–4 MiB)
* 2.0 DMIPS
Dhrystone is a synthetic computing benchmark program developed in 1984 by Reinhold P. Weicker intended to be representative of system (integer) programming. The Dhrystone grew to become representative of general processor (CPU) performance. The ...
/MHz
Chips
Several system-on-chips (SoC) have implemented the Cortex-A8 core, including:
* Allwinner A1X
* Apple A4
The Apple A4 is a 32-bit package on package (PoP) system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc. and manufactured by Samsung. It was the first SoC Apple designed in-house. The first product to feature the A4 was the first-generation iPad, follo ...
* Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embe ...
i.MX51
* 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 ...
RK2918, RK2906
* Samsung Exynos 3110
* TI OMAP3
* TI Sitara ARM Processors
* Conexant
Conexant Systems, Inc. was an American-based software developer and fabless semiconductor company that developed technology for voice and audio processing, imaging and modems. The company began as a division of Rockwell International, before ...
CX92755
See also
* ARM architecture
* List of ARM cores
This is a list of central processing units based on the ARM family of instruction sets designed by ARM Ltd. and third parties, sorted by version of the ARM instruction set, release and name. In 2005, ARM provided a summary of the numerous vendo ...
* List of applications of ARM cores
This is a list of products using processors (i.e. central processing units) based on the ARM architecture family, sorted by generation release and name.
__TOC__
List of products
}
, Broadcom BCM2837: ''Raspberry Pi 3'',
HiSilicon Kirin Series: ' ...
* Comparison of ARMv7-A cores
This is a comparison of processors based on the ARM family of instruction sets designed by ARM Holdings and 3rd parties, sorted by version of the ARM instruction set, release and name.
ARMv6
ARMv7-A
This is a table comparing central proc ...
* JTAG
References
"ARM Cortex
The force that drives mobile devices"
External links
;ARM Holdings
*
{{-
Cortex-A8
The ARM Cortex-A8 is a 32-bit processor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture.
Compared to the ARM11, the Cortex-A8 is a dual-issue superscalar design, achieving roughly twice the instructions per cycle. The Cort ...
ARM Holdings IP cores