The ARM Cortex-A73 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, ...

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 an ' ...

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, RealView ...

' Sophia design centre. The Cortex-A73 is a 2-wide 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. The Cortex-A73 serves as the successor of the Cortex-A72, designed to offer 30% greater performance or 30% increased power efficiency.

Design

The design of the Cortex-A73 is based on the

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculati ...

ARMv7-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 ...

Cortex-A17, emphasizing power efficiency and sustained peak performance. The Cortex-A73 is primarily targeted at

mobile computing Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage, which allows for the transmission of data, voice, and video. Mobile computing involves mobile communication, mobile hardware ...

. In reviews, the Cortex-A73 showed improved

integer An integer is the number zero (), a positive natural number (, , , etc.) or a negative integer with a minus sign ( −1, −2, −3, etc.). The negative numbers are the additive inverses of the corresponding positive numbers. In the languag ...

instructions per clock (IPC), though lower

floating point In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can ...

IPC, relative to the Cortex-A72.

Licensing

The Cortex-A73 is available as SIP core to licensees, and its design makes it suitable for integration with other SIP cores (e.g.

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mo ...

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 computing ...

, 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 or ...

, 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), memory ...

(SoC). The Cortex-A73 is also the first ARM core to be modified through ARM's semi-custom 'Built on ARM' license. The Kryo 280 was the first released semi-custom product, though the modifications made relative to the stock Cortex-A73 were not announced.

Products

The HiSilicon Kirin 960, released in 2016, utilizes 4 Cortex-A73 cores (clocked at 2.36 GHz) as the 'big' cores in a big.LITTLE arrangement with 4 'little'

ARM Cortex-A53 The ARM Cortex-A53 is one of the first two central processing units implementing the ARMv8-A 64-bit instruction set designed by ARM Holdings' Cambridge design centre. The Cortex-A53 is a 2-wide decode superscalar processor, capable of dual-iss ...

cores. The

MediaTek MediaTek Inc. () is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company that provides chips for wireless communications, high-definition television, handheld mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers, navigation systems, consumer multimedi ...

Helio X30 utilizes 2 Cortex-A73 cores (at 2.56 GHz) as the 'big' cores in deca-core big.LITTLE arrangement with 4

Cortex-A53 The ARM Cortex-A53 is one of the first two central processing units 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 i ...

and 4

Cortex-A35 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 ...

'little' cores. The Kryo 280, released in March 2017 by

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...

in the Snapdragon 835, uses a modified Cortex-A73 core. The SoC utilizes 8 Kryo 280 cores in a big.LITTLE arrangement as two 4-core blocks, clocked at 2.456 GHz and 1.906 GHz. The modifications made by Qualcomm relative to the stock Cortex-A73 core are unknown, and the resulting Kryo 280 core demonstrated increased integer IPC. The Kryo 260 also used Cortex-A73 cores, though at lower clock speeds than the Kryo 280 and in combination with

cores. The Cortex-A73 is also found in a wide range of mid-range chipsets such as the

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

Exynos Exynos, formerly Hummingbird (), is a series of ARM-based system-on-chips developed by Samsung Electronics' System LSI division and manufactured by Samsung Foundry. It is a continuation of Samsung's earlier S3C, S5L and S5P line of SoCs. E ...

, MediaTek Helio P series, and other HiSilicon Kirin models. Like the Snapdragon 636/660, most of these chipsets implement 4 A73 cores and 4 A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration, although some lower end models of Samsung chips implement only 2 A73 cores with 6 A53 cores.

References

{{Application ARM-based chips * Microarchitectures

Design

Licensing

Products

See also

References