May 30, 2023 12:40:00

Arm announces next-generation CPU premium core 'Cortex-X4' and high-performance core 'Cortex-A720', Cortex-X4 improves peak performance by 15% and reduces power consumption

On May 29, 2023,

Arm Holdings , a semiconductor design company under the SoftBank Group, launched the CPU premium core ' Cortex-X4 ' and the high-performance core ' Cortex-A720 ', high-efficiency core ' Cortex-A520 ', etc.

TCS23: The complete platform for consumer computing - Announcements - Arm Community blogs - Arm Community
https://community.arm.com/arm-community-blogs/b/announcements/posts/third-generation-total-compute-solutions

Arm Cortex-X4 advances frontiers of CPU performance - Announcements - Arm Community blogs - Arm Community
https://community.arm.com/arm-community-blogs/b/announcements/posts/cortex-x4-cpu-performance

New Arm Cortex-A720 and Cortex-A520 CPUs launched - Announcements - Arm Community blogs - Arm Community
https://community.arm.com/arm-community-blogs/b/announcements/posts/arm-cortex-a720-and-cortex-a520-cpus

Arm announces Cortex-X4 among latest CPU and GPU designs • The Register
https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/29/arm_tcs23/

Arm Unveils 2023 Mobile CPU Core Designs: Cortex-X4, A720, and A520 - the Armv9.2 Family
https://www.anandtech.com/show/18871/arm-unveils-armv92-mobile-architecture-cortex-x4-a720-and-a520-64bit-exclusive

At COMPUTEX TAIPEI , a trade fair in the computer field held in Taiwan, Arm announced the 'TCS23' product group, the latest version of the Arm architecture IP package and TCS. TCS is Arm's first IP package announced in 2021, designed and optimized to work seamlessly with each processor and product.

In addition to the processor, TCS also includes development tools for the latest version of Android and physical implementation support to accelerate SoC design. As a result, SoC designers can easily combine the latest Arm processors into their devices and quickly bring them to market.

Arm architecture is characterized by power saving, and is widely used as

SoC such as smartphones where it is important to reduce power consumption. The mobile CPUs announced by Arm in recent years have the highest performance 'Premium Core', 'High Performance Core' with a good balance between performance and power saving, and 'High Efficiency Core' with excellent power saving. There are types. At TCS23, 'Cortex-X4' was announced as a premium core of the CPU, 'Cortex-A720' as a high-performance core, and 'Cortex-A520' as a high-efficiency core. Arm is phasing out the 32-bit instruction set, and in TCS23 all CPUs are 64-bit clusters.

The premium core 'Cortex-X4' has a 15% improvement in peak performance and a 40% improvement in power efficiency compared to the previous generation 'Cortex-X3'. “Like all Cortex-X CPUs, the Cortex-X4 is designed for ultimate performance,” Arm said. It's also an efficient Cortex-X CPU core.'

The high-performance core 'Cortex-A720' has an improved microarchitecture to demonstrate performance while reducing the power of the entire system, improving power efficiency by 20% compared to the previous generation 'Cortex-A715'. It is explained that In addition, the high-efficiency core Cortex-A520 was developed with a focus on providing the highest power efficiency with the smallest silicon footprint, with power efficiency improving by 22% over the previous generation Cortex-A510. It is said that there is.

In addition, the CPU cluster architecture ' DSU (DynamIQ Shared Unit)-120 ' included in TCS23 achieves scalability from a single core to 14 cores. As a result, device makers can realize devices with a wide range of CPU clusters from entry-level smartphones to flagship smartphones and premium notebook PCs with TCS23.

Arm compares the ``1 + 3 + 4'' configuration with 1 premium core, 3 high-performance cores, and 4 high-efficiency cores in TCS22, and the ``1 + 5 + 2'' configuration in TCS23, respectively, peak performance in general computing claimed to improve by 27%. In addition, the browsing experience is said to improve performance by 33% with the same configuration, and improve performance by 64% when combined with software optimized for TCS23.

At TCS23, Arm also announced the flagship GPU ' Immortalis-G720 ' based on

the 5th generation GPU architecture , and the new models of the Mali series ' Mali-G720 ' and ' Mali-G620 '. Immortalis-G720 supports 10 or more cores, Mali-G720 supports 6 to 9 cores, and Mali-G620 supports 5 or less cores, all of which achieve 15% higher performance and energy efficiency than the previous generation. That's what I'm talking about.

TCS23 is optimized to improve workload latency and bandwidth reduction, delivering an average 30% reduction in DRAM bandwidth per frame compared to the previous generation TCS22. Arm claimed that the lower bandwidth also saves power consumption, saving an average of 20% in GPU and DRAM power consumption.