ARM Cortex-A7 explained

ARM Cortex-A7
Produced-Start:	2011
Slowest:	520 MHz
Fastest:	2.3 GHz
Designfirm:	ARM Holdings
Arch:	ARMv7-A
Numcores:	1–8
L1cache:	8–64 KB/8–64 KB
L2cache:	Optional, up to 1 MB
Predecessor:	ARM Cortex-A5
Successor:	ARM Cortex-A53

The ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore is a 32-bit microprocessor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture announced in 2011.

Overview

It has two target applications; firstly as a smaller, simpler, and more power-efficient successor to the Cortex-A8. The other use is in the big.LITTLE architecture, combining one or more A7 cores with one or more Cortex-A15 cores into a heterogeneous system.^[1] To do this it is fully feature-compatible with the A15.

Key features of the Cortex-A7 core are:

• Partial dual-issue, in-order microarchitecture with an 8-stage pipeline^[2]
• NEON SIMD instruction set extension
• VFPv4 Floating Point Unit
• Thumb-2 instruction set encoding
• Jazelle RCT
• Hardware virtualization
• Large Page Address Extensions (LPAE)
• Integrated level 2 Cache (0–1 MB)
• 1.9 DMIPS / MHz^[2]
• Typical clock speed 1.5 GHz^[2]

Chips

Several system-on-chips (SoC) have implemented the Cortex-A7 core, including:

• Allwinner A20 (dual-core A7 + Mali-400 MP2 GPU)^[3]
• Allwinner A31 (quad-core A7 + PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU)^[4]
• Allwinner A83T (octa-core A7 + PowerVR SGX544 GPU)^[5]
• Allwinner H3(quad-core A7 + Mali-400 MP2 GPU)^[6]
• Broadcom BCM23550 quad-core HSPA+ Multimedia Processor^[7]
• Broadcom BCM2836 (quad-core A7 + VideoCore IV GPU), designed specifically for Raspberry Pi 2^[8]
• NXP Semiconductor (Formerly Freescale) QorIQ Layerscape LS1 (dual-core A7)
• Freescale i.MX 6 UltraLite
• HiSilicon K3V3, big.LITTLE architecture with dual-core Cortex-A7 and dual-core Cortex-A15. Use ARM Mali-T658 GPU.
• Marvell PXA1088 (quad-core A7 + Vivante GC1000)^[9]
• Mediatek MT6570 (dual-core A7 + ARM Mali-400MP1 GPU)
• Mediatek MT6572 (dual-core A7 + ARM Mali-400MP1 GPU)
• Mediatek MT6580 (quad-core A7 + ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU)
• Mediatek MT6582 (quad-core A7 + ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU)
• Mediatek MT6589 (quad-core A7 + Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX544 GPU)
• Mediatek MT6592 (octa-core A7 + ARM Mali-450MP4 GPU)
• Mstar MSB2531A ARM Cortex A7 32bit 800MHZ
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 and Snapdragon 400 MSM8212 and MSM8612, MSM8226, MSM8626 and MSM8926 (quad core A7 + Adreno 305 GPU)
• Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (5410), big.LITTLE architecture with quad-core Cortex-A7 and quad-core Cortex-A15. Use Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX544MP3 GPU.
• Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (5420), big.LITTLE architecture with quad-core Cortex-A7 and quad-core Cortex-A15. Use ARM Mali-T628MP6 GPU.
• STMicroelectronics STM32MP13x (single-core A7)
• STMicroelectronics STM32MP15x (dual-core A7 + M4 + Vivante GPU)
• ASPEED AST2600 BMC (dual-core A7 + M4)

See also

• ARM architecture
• Comparison of ARMv7-A cores
• JTAG
• List of applications of ARM cores
• List of ARM cores

External links

ARM Holdings

• • Cortex-A7 Technical Reference Manuals

Other

• Cortex-A7 instruction cycle timings

Notes and References

1. Web site: big.LITTLE Processing . . 2012-10-17 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121022055646/http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/bigLITTLEprocessing.php . 2012-10-22 . dead .
2. Web site: ARM's Cortex A7: Bringing Cheaper Dual-Core & More Power Efficient High-End Devices . . 2011-10-19 . Anand Lal Shimpi . 2012-10-17.
3. Web site: AllWinner Publishes A31 and A20 Processors Details . CNXSoft . December 9, 2012 . 2012-12-09 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121212052710/http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/12/09/allwinner-a31-and-a20-processors-details/ . December 12, 2012 . dead .
4. Web site: A31 . Allwinner Technology . 2016-02-18 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160221101940/http://www.allwinnertech.com/en/clq/processora/A31.html . 2016-02-21 .
5. Web site: A83T . Allwinner Technology . 2016-02-18 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160210121052/http://www.allwinnertech.com/en/clq/processora/AllwinnerA83T.html . 2016-02-10 . dead .
6. Web site: H3 . Allwinner . 2016-11-04.
7. Web site: BCM23550 . . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20131029004818/http://www.broadcom.com/products/Cellular/3G-Baseband-Processors/BCM23550 . 2013-10-29 .
8. Web site: Upton. Eben. Raspberry Pi 2 on sale now at $35. Raspberry Pi Foundation. 3 February 2015. 11 April 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150411203545/https://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/. dead.
9. Web site: PXA1088 . . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20130512222415/http://www.marvell.com/communication-processors/pxa1088/ . 2013-05-12 .