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Samsung is the third major semiconductor vendor after Texas Instruments (OMAP35xx) and Freescale (i.MX51) to offer a system-on-chip (SoC) based on ARM's superscalar Cortex-A8 core (see farther below for more details). Other licensees of the Cortex-A8 include STMicroelectronics, Broadcom, PMC-Sierra, and Panasonic.
TI's OMAP35xx and Freescale's i.MX51 are fabricated using 65nm technology, whereas the S5Px SoCs are said to be fabbed with 45nm technology. In addition, the Samsung chips are clocked at 1GHz, while the OMAP35xx tops out at 600MHz, and the i.MX51 clocks from 800MHz to 1GHz.
Aimed at media-ready mobile devices requiring long battery life, Samsung's new SoCs are said to offer a 3D graphics engine for "sophisticated 3D UIand high-caliber games." The processors also support 1080p videoplayback and recording, as well as offering an HDMI 1.3 interface, saysthe company.
A Hummingbird base?
Though Samsung did not confirm it in today's release announcement, its new S5PC110 and S5PV210 appear to be the first result of a September 2008 agreement it signed with Texas-based Intrinsity, Inc., intended to result in low-powerprocessors using the latter's "Fast14" technology. According toIntrinsity, Fast14 technology combines 1-of-N Domino Logic (NDL),custom and semicustom static logic, high-speed memory technology,specialized low-power design techniques, and a design automationplatform, adding up to "the best available combination of speed, powerand silicon area."
In July, Samsung and Intrinsity announced Hummingbird, touted as "the industry's fastest mobile processor core implementation" of theARM Cortex-A8 architecture. SoCs based on the Hummingbird will use a 45nm productionprocess, run at 1GHz, and feature extremely low power leakage in sleepmode, the companies said at the time.
According to the companies, SoCs based on the Hummingbird core employ enhanced logic that is"cycle-accurate and Boolean equivalent to the original Cortex-A8 RTL[register transfer level] specification," but is said to replace thetypical synthesized static logic with Intrinsity's proprietary NDL.It's claimed that NDL gates can operate 25 to 50 percent faster thanstatic logic gates.
The Hummingbird will also use other power-saving techniques, such asaggressive clock gating, power gating, variable voltage/frequencyscaling, optimized Vt selection, and power efficient on-chipcommunication, the companies say. SoCs based on the Hummingbird corewill also offer particularly "low leakage," meaning that little currentis being leaked when a device is in sleep mode, the companies say.
3G graphics and HD video
The S5PC110 and S5PV210 both offer 32KB data and 32KB instruction caches, as well as a 512KB L2 cache, says Samsung. Both SoCs are said to offer a "wide variety of interfaces and peripherals," though apart from HDMI, only high-speed USB 2.0 was detailed.
The S5Px SoCs appear to differ only in packaging and memory interfaces. Aimed at small form-factor mobile devices, the S5PC110 is housed in a 0.5mm pitch, 14x14mm FBGA package. This enables package-on-package vertical stacking of low power, multiple chip package (MCP) memory such as OneDRAM, mobile DDR, or LP DDR2, says Samsung.
The netbook-oriented S5PV210, meanwhile, is packaged in a 0.65mm pitch, 17x17mm FBGA package. The SoC also offers a dual-channel 32-bit DDR2 memory interface, says the company.
Samsung did not offer operating system support details about the S5PVx SoCs, but other Cortex-A8 SoCs have supported Linux, Windows, and other major operating systems.
Cortex-A8 background
The ARM Cortex-A8 core architecture, which tops out at 1GHz, was announced in 2005. Based on the ARMv7 instruction set, the core offers a dual-issue, superscalar pipeline that can execute multiple instructions simultaneously, helping it deliver 2,000 DMIPS (Dhrystone MIPS) at 1GHz. The A8 was the first of ARM's processor designs to integrate the company's Neon integer and floating-point pipelines for media and signal processing.
ARM followed up with a Cortex-A9 core, announced in Oct. 2007, which should appear in finished silicon later this year or early next. The Cortex-A9 is promoted as supporting clock speeds over 1GHz and performance of around 2,000 Dhrystone MIPS. The A9 also incorporates ARM's MPCore interconnect technology.
Last week, ARM Holdings announced two dual-core implementations of the Cortex-A9, code-named "Osprey," said to be capable of clock speeds above 2GHz. Osprey evaluation chips should be available in 1Q 2009, says the company.
Stated Kwang Hyun Kim, SVP, strategic marketing team, System LSI Division, Samsung Electronics, "PC-level performance with lower power consumption will become mainstream requirements for advanced mobile devices. Samsung developed S5PC110 and S5PV210 application processors to satisfy these conflicting requirements to enable a new level of user experience not previously possible."
Availability
Customer samples of the S5PC110 and S5PV210 SoCs will be available in December, says Samsung Electronics. More information may eventually be found at Samsung's website, here.
