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Nairaland Forum / Science/Technology / Phones / Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs (2413 Views)
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Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 8:08pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
An SoC can be defined as a small device in the form of a chip that contains all of the ingredients needed for the functioning of a smartphone. Unlike a proper computer processor, smartphone SoCs are also referred to as microprocessors and pack all the gizmos used by a phone into the SoC such as the: 1. CPU cores 2. Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) 3. RAM 4. ROM 5. Modems (2G, 3G, 4G LTE, 5G) 6. Radio (FM, BT, WiFi) 7. Image Signal Processor (ISP and DSP) for camera performance etc. These are all squeezed into a small chip the size of a 50 kobo coin. The brains behind this technology is a company called ARM holdings. ARM designed this type of microprocessors for smaller devices that run on batteries so as to save space as well as battery and to reduce heat emissions. It's no fun to charge a battery for an hour plus, only to use it for 10 mins while it is hot enough to cook raw eggs abi? ARM holdings do not produce any chips. Instead they produce designs for Mobile computing and sell them to semiconductor companies that actually manufacture these chips. All smartphones uses ARM cortex cores for their CPUs. ARM cortex cores uses RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing). This means that they're designed to handle less complex tasks or tend to break difficult tasks into smaller sections before attempting to process them. This is different from Intel CPUs on PCs that use CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) that can simply blaze through any task at a go. The design methods used by ARM is called Architecture. ARM licenses and sell their design in two forms 1. Core License A core licensee buys the design and manufactures it as designed by ARM and then sells the hardware or build a device around it. 2. Architecture License An architecture licensee buys the design and then modifies it to their own taste. Apple bought A9 cortex designs and rewrote the instruction set data size to 64bits while everyone else were still using 32bits. A modified core is called a Custom Core. Examples of custom cores from Apple are Swift, Cyclone, Typhoon, Twister and Bionic. Qualcomm makes Krait and Kryo (Gold and Silver). Everyone buys from ARM holdings including Apple, Qualcomm Snapdragon, Samsung Exynos, Huawei Kirin, Mediatek and Nvidia Tegra. ARM cortex CPU cores come in data sizes of 32 and 64 bits as well as instruction sets of 16 bit thumb and 32 bit ARM. The larger the number, the better. If you are buying a phone from a honest manufacturer, they'll put the type of CPU cores in the advertisement. Some of us buying phones must have seen words like ARM cortex 53, 72, 73 etc. Inside an SoC, there could be several numbers of CPUs inside. These CPUs are called cores. An SoC with 2 CPUs is called a dual core, 4 CPUs is called a Quad core, 6 CPUs is a Hexa core, 8 is an Octa core and 10 is a deca core. Inside these SoCs, most SoC manufacturers arrange these core into two groups in a method know as big.LITTLE. High performance group/cluster (for heavy tasks but drains battery) and low performance (only for light tasks but saves battery) although the new Snapdragon 865 uses a High-Mid-low three tier arrangement in the SoC. Here are a list of all the ARM cortex cores made: (32-bit) Year Core 2005 Cortex-A8 2007 Cortex-A9 2009 Cortex-A5 2010 Cortex-A15 2011 Cortex-A7 2013 Cortex-A12 2014 Cortex-A17 2016 Cortex-A32 (64-bit) Year Core 2012 Cortex-A53 2012 Cortex-A57 2015 Cortex-A35 2015 Cortex-A72 2016 Cortex-A34 2016 Cortex-A73 2017 Cortex-A55 2017 Cortex-A75 2018 Cortex-A76 2018 Cortex-A65AE 2018 Cortex-A76AE 2019 Cortex-A77 Instruction sets The Cortex-A5 / A7 / A8 / A9 / A12 / A15 / A17 cores implement the ARMv7-A architecture. The Cortex-A32 / A34 / A35 / A53 / A57 / A72 / A73 cores implement the ARMv8-A architecture. The Cortex-A55 / A65 / A75 / A76 / A77 cores implement the ARMv8.2-A architecture. The A30 tier have low performance. The A50 tier have mid performance and the A70 are high performance. Finally: How are cores better than each other? Let's look at two ARM cortex cores: A53 and A72. Build: the A53 is built in a simpler method with less transistors on a larger substrate (mini motherboard) whilst the A72 has more transistors and is built in a more complex way on a smaller substrate. Processing: The A53 is bigger so it takes a bit more time for information to travel from CPU to RAM to Cache memory but the A72 is smaller so it takes less time/or it's quicker for information to travel from CPU to RAM and cache memory. The cache memory for the A72 is also bigger than that in the A53. 11 Likes 2 Shares
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Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by Karex81(m): 8:27pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
Nice wan op, someone give this man a medal. 4 Likes |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by Thelucifer666(m): 8:43pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
Interesting write up Seems my phone has only 7 cpus according to an app called CPU Z |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 8:59pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
Karex81:
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Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 8:59pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
Karex81: Thank you. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 9:00pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
Thelucifer666: That can't be right. What's the name of your phone? |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by Thelucifer666(m): 9:01pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
atheistandproud:Samsung note 9 1 Like |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 9:04pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
Thelucifer666: PLATFORM OS Android 8.1 (Oreo), upgradable to Android 10.0; One UI 2.0 Chipset Exynos 9810 (10 nm) - EMEA Qualcomm SDM845 Snapdragon 845 (10 nm) - USA/LATAM, China CPU Octa-core (4x2.7 GHz Mongoose M3 & 4x1.8 GHz Cortex-A55) - EMEA Octa-core (4x2.8 GHz Kryo 385 Gold & 4x1.7 GHz Kryo 385 Silver) - USA/LATAM, China GPU Mali-G72 MP18 - EMEA Adreno 630 - USA/LATAM, China Copied from GSM Arena |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 9:05pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
Thelucifer666: Your Samsung Note has an Octa core SoC and the phone uses 4 Exynos Mongoose cores which are custom cores designed by Samsung to run really fast and 4 normal ARM Cortex A55 cores for lesser tasks to save battery. 1 Like |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by Thelucifer666(m): 9:05pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
atheistandproud:Sorry It's 8, seems I'm getting blind due to old age. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by romoruyi(m): 9:06pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
Nice tech info 1 Like |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 9:07pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
Thelucifer666: Lol. No reason am. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 9:07pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
romoruyi: Thank you. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by reaky(m): 9:35pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
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Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 9:44pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by talut(m): 11:02pm On Apr 27, 2020 |
I have to say this is one "s+" article. The link up of all the aspects to mention when discussing mobile SoCs is flawless. nice one op. 6 Likes |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by reaky(m): 1:43am On Apr 28, 2020 |
atheistandproud: Yea bro ☺️ 1 Like |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by Thelucifer666(m): 7:01am On Apr 28, 2020 |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by Thelucifer666(m): 7:01am On Apr 28, 2020 |
atheistandproud:It's snapdragon. Exynos is a joke |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 11:06am On Apr 28, 2020 |
talut: Thank you very much. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 11:14am On Apr 28, 2020 |
Thelucifer666: I assumed you were using the Exynos version and jumped the gun. I apologize sincerely. There's an issue with the Exynos chips and variants. Unlike Snapdragon that packs everything into a single chip which then acts as one entity. Exynos purchases Mali GPUs and installs it as a separate entity in the motherboard. This causes some latency in processing as well as data transfer between the SoC and GPU. Also Mali GPUs are not that good and struggle with graphics intensive tasks. The Exynos design itself could have a bug or two Samsung needs to put it's house in order. 1 Like |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by Thelucifer666(m): 11:19am On Apr 28, 2020 |
atheistandproud:Interesting, thanks for the info. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by BenDanor(m): 11:31am On Apr 28, 2020 |
atheistandproud:This is educative bro. Now I know the exact meaning of SoC and a little about ARM architecture. I'll hope to see a write up about GPU to know which is better. Thanks for the knowledge 1 Like |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 11:48am On Apr 28, 2020 |
BenDanor: You're welcome my oga. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 11:51am On Apr 28, 2020 |
BenDanor: Generally speaking, for Androids, Qualcomm's Adreno GPUs are the best. Adreno GPUs are only used by Snapdragon SoCs. The other two GPU brands used for Androids are Mali GPU (Mediatek, Exynos and Kirin) and Power VR (Mediatek mostly and sometimes Exynos). 1 Like |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by BenDanor(m): 12:06pm On Apr 28, 2020 |
atheistandproud:Thanks for the info 2 Likes |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 1:43pm On Apr 28, 2020 |
BenDanor: You're welcome. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by KrazyDave16(m): 6:20pm On Apr 28, 2020 |
This write-up is damn informative and interesting to read. Hoping to see more posts on GPU, binning (not pixel binning) and clocking 3 Likes |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 8:24pm On Apr 28, 2020 |
KrazyDave16: Thanks. Initially, I wanted to write on Snapdragon chipsets but somehow I sidetracked and ended up writing on this instead. My brain get mind of its own sometimes. Lol. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by KrazyDave16(m): 7:26am On Apr 29, 2020 |
atheistandproud: Nothing spoil. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by atheistandproud(m): 9:02am On Apr 29, 2020 |
KrazyDave16: Ok bro. |
Re: Understanding ARM Cortex Used In Building Smartphone Socs by FryMosquito: 9:10am On Apr 29, 2020 |
Nice one op... ARM will design, while TSMC will manufacture for the chips companies |
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