ARM annuncia l'architettura Cortex-A12 e la GPU Mali-T622 per la fascia media del prossimo anno

ARM dedica i suoi ultimi chip ai dispositivi mid-range, quelli che la stessa azienda inquadra come compresi tra 150 e 350$, che otterranno più potenza ed un più efficiente risparmio energetico.

Ecco quindi a voi il Cortex-A12, un'architettura efficiente da un punto di vista energetico quando il Cortex-A9, ma più performante. Le operazioni in single-thread sono infatti superiori del 40% rispetto all'A9, con un chip ridotto del 30% nelle dimensioni, grazie al processo costruttivo a 28 nm. A questo aggiungiamo il supporto fino ad 1 TB di RAM (come se ce ne fosse bisogno!) e il supporto software per virtualizzazione e TrustZone. È inoltre possibile accoppiare l'A12 con i chip A7 in architettura big.LITTLE un po' come fatto da Samsung con l'Exynos 5 (Cortex A15-A9), garantendo, secondo ARM, un raddoppiamento dell'efficienza energetica del SoC.

Veniamo poi alal GPU Mali-T622, qualcosa a metà tra la Mali-T604 e la futura Mali-T624.

Anche in questo caso, ARM vanta un'efficienza energetica del 50% in più rispetto al T604, con in più rendering multi-core fino alla recenti OpenGL ES 3.0, DirecX 11, e OpenCL 1.1. Il Mali-T622 può essere implementato sia come single-core che come dual-core.

Infine Mali-V500 è una soluzione per l'elaborazione video (sia encoding che decoding) che con una singolo core grafico gestisce encoding fino a 1080p a 60 fps, e riproduzione di video 4K a 120 fps.

Tutte e tre queste soluzioni però sono solo state annunciate per adesso, e saranno disponibili verso metà 2014. A seguire il comunicato stampa originale.

CAMBRIDGE, England & TAIPEI, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today at Computex, ARM announced an optimized IP solution designed to power the 580 million mid-range mobile devices expected over the next two years. The mid-range market is projected to exceed the number of premium smartphones and tablets beginning in 2015. Targeted at the mid-range market, this new suite of ARM IP is optimized for power, performance and die size.

Used together, this suite of IP will provide consumers with premium features like virtualization, big.LITTLE processing and GPU compute at mid-range price points.

The suite extends the ARM® Cortex®-A processor and ARM Mali™-T GPU series with the Cortex-A12 processor and Mali-T622 GPU and introduces a new video IP product, the Mali-V500. With support from ARM POP™ technology and the ARM Development Studio 5 (DS-5™) toolchain, ARM partners can deliver smartphones and tablets with higher efficiency and reduced time to market. Partners will announce their plans in due course, but ARM expects this IP solution will be in mobile devices by mid-2014.

“Mobile users expect a range of devices at different price points and for a mid-range mobile experience to include some high end mobile features. With a billion smartphones predicted to ship in 2013 and tablets projected to out-ship notebook PCs, device-makers can now provide quality, high-performance mobile products with the features that matter the most, at a range of price points,” said Ian Drew, chief marketing officer and executive vice president, ARM.

“The market is evolving at an amazing rate and there is now a choice of solutions for semiconductor companies and for mobile device-makers. Our suite of optimized IP expands the choice for the mid-range mobile market.”

The energy-saving technology known as ARM big.LITTLE™ processing is only just coming to high-end devices today, but now can be designed into mid-range smartphones, allowing users to do more with their devices. The Cortex-A12 processor offers ARM partners a 40 percent performance uplift in the same power envelope when compared to the successful Cortex-A9 processor. The Cortex-A12 processor builds on best-in-class efficiency as a standalone solution and additionally supports the innovative big.LITTLE™ processing technology with the Cortex-A7 processor. The Cortex-A12 introduces features found in premium smartphones and tablets to mid-range devices, including virtualization. Additional information for the Cortex-A12 processor can be found here.

The Mali-T622 GPU, is OpenGL ES 3.0 conformant, supports the Renderscript and OpenCL™ APIs, and is the smallest full profile GPU Compute solution available for mobile devices.

The Mali-T622 GPU brings a rich, visual experience to mid-range mobile devices with functionality only now becoming available in the highest-end premium smartphones and tablets. It does all of this while providing a 50 percent energy-efficiency improvement over first-generation Mali-T600 series products. A closer look at the Mali-T622 GPU can be found here.

The energy-efficient Mali-V500 video solution provides dedicated video processing and reduces system bandwidth requirements by more than 50 percent[ii] compared to currently available solutions. The Mali-V500 is a multicore video solution, scaling from a single core capable of 1080p/60 encode and decode to multiple cores supporting ultra-high definition 4K at a blistering 120 frames per second. Additionally, the Mali-V500 video solution was architected with support for TrustZone® security technology enabling efficient, hardware-backed security for movie and TV content from download to display. More details on the Mali-V500 video solution are available here.