The ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore is a 32-bit processor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture. It is a multicore processor with out-of-order superscalar pipeline running at up to 2.5 GHz.

Overview

ARM has claimed that the Cortex-A15 core is 40 percent more powerful than the Cortex-A9 core with the same number of cores at the same speed. The first A15 designs came out in the autumn of 2011, but products based on the chip did not reach the market until 2012.

Key features of the Cortex-A15 core are:

  • 40-bit Large Physical Address Extensions (LPAE) addressing up to 1 TB of RAM with a 32-bit virtual address space.
  • 15 stage integer/17–25 stage floating point pipeline, with out-of-order speculative issue 3-way superscalar execution pipeline
  • 4 cores per cluster, up to 2 clusters per chip with CoreLink 400 (CCI-400, an AMBA-4 coherent interconnect) and 4 clusters per chip with CCN-504. ARM provides specifications but the licensees individually design ARM chips, and AMBA-4 scales beyond 2 clusters. The theoretical limit is 16 clusters; 4 bits are used to code the CLUSTERID number in the CP15 register (bits 8 to 11).
  • DSP and NEON SIMD extensions onboard (per core)
  • VFPv4 Floating Point Unit onboard (per core)
  • Hardware virtualization support
  • Thumb-2 instruction set encoding to reduce the size of programs with little impact on performance
  • TrustZone security extensions
  • Jazelle RCT for JIT compilation
  • Program Trace Macrocell and CoreSight Design Kit for unobtrusive tracing of instruction execution
  • 32 KB data + 32 KB instruction L1 cache per core
  • Integrated low-latency level-2 cache controller, up to 4 MB per cluster

Chips

First implementation came from Samsung in 2012 with the Exynos 5 Dual, which shipped in October 2012 with the Samsung Chromebook Series 3 (ARM version), followed in November by the Google Nexus 10.

Press announcements of current implementations:

Other licensees, such as LG, are expected to produce an A15 based design at some point.

Systems on a chip

Model NumberSemiconductor technologyCPUGPUMemory interfaceWireless radio technologiesAvailabilityUtilizing devices
HiSilicon K3V328 nm HPLbig.LITTLE architecture using 1.8 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 + dual-core ARM Cortex-A7Mali-T628H2 2014
Nvidia Tegra 4 T4028 nm HPL1.9 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 + 1 low power coreNvidia GeForce @ 72 core, 672 MHz, 96.8 GFLOPS = 48 PS + 24 VU × 0.672 × 2 (96.8 GFLOPS)(support DirectX 11+, OpenGL 4.X, and PhysX)32-bit dual-channel DDR3L or LPDDR3 up to 933 MHz (1866 MT/s data rate)Category 3 (100 Mbit/s) LTEQ2 2013Nvidia Shield Tegra Note 7
Nvidia Tegra 4 AP4028 nm HPL1.2-1.8 GHz quad-core + low power coreNvidia GPU 60 cores (support DirectX 11+, OpenGL 4.X, and PhysX)32-bit dual-channel 800 MHz LPDDR3Category 3 (100 Mbit/s) LTEQ3 2013
Nvidia Tegra K128 nm HPm2.3 GHz quad-core + battery saver coreKepler SMX (192 CUDA cores, 8 TMUs, 4 ROPs)32-bit dual-channel DDR3L, LPDDR3 or LPDDR2Q2 2014Jetson TK1 development board, Lenovo ThinkVision 28, Xiaomi MiPad, Shield Tablet
Texas Instruments OMAP543028 nm1.7 GHz dual-corePowerVR SGX544MP2 @ 532 MHz + dedicated 2D graphics accelerator32-bit dual-channel 532 MHz LPDDR2Q2 2013phyCore-OMAP5430
Texas Instruments OMAP543228 nm1.5 GHz dual-corePowerVR SGX544MP2 @ 532 MHz + dedicated 2D graphics accelerator32-bit dual-channel 532 MHz DDR3Q2 2013DragonBox Pyra, SVTronics EVM, Compulab SBC-T54
Texas Instruments AM57x28 nm1.5 GHz single or dual-corePowerVR SGX544MP2 @ 532 MHz + dedicated 2D graphics accelerator32-bit dual-channel 532 MHz DDR3Q4 2015BeagleBoard-X15, BeagleBone AI, Elesar Titanium
Texas Instruments 66AK2x28 nm1.5 GHz single, dual, and quad core devices1-8 C66x DSP cores, radio acceleration, and many other application specific acceleratorsQ4 2015
Exynos 5 Dual (previously Exynos 5250)32 nm HKMG1.7 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A15ARM Mali-T604 (quad-core) @ 533 MHz; 68.224 GFLOPS [citation needed]32-bit dual-channel 800 MHz LPDDR3/DDR3 (12.8 GB/sec) or 533 MHz LPDDR2 (8.5 GB/sec)Q3 2012Samsung Chromebook XE303C12, Google Nexus 10, Arndale Board, Huins ACHRO 5250 Exynos, Freelander PD800 HD, Voyo A15, HP Chromebook 11, Samsung Homesync
Exynos 5 Octa (internally Exynos 5410)28 nm HKMG1.6 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 and 1.2 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 (ARM big.LITTLE)IT PowerVR SGX544MP3 (tri-core) @ 480 MHz 49 GFLOPS (532 MHz in some full-screen apps)32-bit dual-channel 800 MHz LPDDR3 (12.8 GB/sec)Q2 2013Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500, Hardkernel ODROID-XU, Meizu MX3, ZTE Grand S II TD ODROID-XU
Exynos 5 Octa (internally Exynos 5420)28 nm HKMG1.8-1.9 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 and 1.3 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 (ARM big.LITTLE with GTS)ARM Mali-T628 MP6 @ 533 MHz; 109 GFLOPS32-bit dual-channel 933 MHz LPDDR3e (14.9 GB/sec)Q3 2013Samsung Chromebook 2 11.6", Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition), Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2, Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro (12.2 & 10.1), Arndale Octa Board, Galaxy S5 SM-G900H
Exynos 5 Octa (internally Exynos 5422)28 nm HKMG2.1 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 and 1.5 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 (ARM big.LITTLE with GTS)ARM Mali-T628 MP6 @ 695 MHz (142 Gflops)32-bit dual-channel 933 MHz LPDDR3/DDR3 (14.9 GB/sec)Q2 2014Galaxy S5 SM-G900, Hardkernel ODROID-XU3 & ODROID-XU4
Exynos 5 Octa (internally Exynos 5800)28 nm HKMG2.1 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 and 1.3 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 (ARM big.LITTLE with GTS)ARM Mali-T628 MP6 @ 695 MHz (142 Gflops)32-bit dual-channel 933 MHz LPDDR3/DDR3 (14.9 GB/sec)Q2 2014Samsung Chromebook 2 13,3"
Exynos 5 Hexa (internally Exynos 5260)28 nm HKMG1.7 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 and 1.3 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 (ARM big.LITTLE with GTS)ARM Mali-T62432-bit dual-channel 800 MHz LPDDR3 (12.8 GB/sec)Q2 2014Galaxy Note 3 Neo (announced January 31, 2014), Samsung Galaxy K zoom
Allwinner A80 Octa28 nm HPmQuad-core ARM Cortex-A15 and Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 (ARM big.LITTLE with GTS)PowerVR G6230 (Rogue)32-bit dual-channel DDR3/DDR3L/LPDDR3 or LPDDR2

See also

External links