ARM Community: Trends in Mobile Computing Applications: Part 1 - ARM Community

This is the 1^st part of a 3 part series regarding key trends in mobile computing applications and their implications for SoC hardware, software, and verification.
How did your smartphone get so smart?Today’s smartphones, tablets and other mobile applications now all rely on multiple processors or “cores”. Why? Without them performance demanding “apps” couldn’t provide the instantaneous response users have come to expect and demand. Apps such as, video playback, photo editing, facial recognition, turn-by-turn GPS, and real time gaming—all with instantaneous response times—are now simply table stakes to compete in the smartphone/tablet arena. Only by employing multi-core processors are designers able to meet these performance needs and take best advantage of their SoC’s silicon real estate.

Turning the Screws on Performance
The need to squeeze every last drop of performance while concurrently minimizing power consumption from these compute clusters is more important now than ever. A tried and true solution for gaining performance is achieved through converting functionality implemented in software into the hardware itself. This reduces processor cycles consumed or enables them to be redeployed for other applications.

As smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices employ multiple processors they’ve increasingly turned to cached and shared memories to optimize performance. To maintain coherency (i.e., ensuring only up to date information is used) caches and memories have traditionally been managed through software running on the main processor. The dirty secret is that such software based cache coherency management schemes are unable to keep up performance-wise and unnecessarily consume precious, battery draining power. In other words, cache coherency management is low hanging fruit for conversion to hardware.
Guest Partner Blogger:
Pete Heller is Senior Product Line Manager for Verification IP (VIP) and Interconnect at Cadence and has played a key role in the growth of Cadence's VIP business. Mr. Heller holds both a BA in Computer Science as well as an MBA from Indiana University's Kelley Graduate School of Business.



ARM welcomes its wealth of Partners in the ARM Connected Community (CC) to submit guest blogs to be published on our multiple community blogs. If interested in participating please submit email inquiries to Tell.Us@arm.com.

The ARM Connected Community (CC) is an extensive ecosystem covering all aspects of ARM processor-based design, from chip implementation through to system and device design. The CC provides a platform for collaborative innovation, with multiple types of forums for members to work with one another, and with customers, to solve industry challenges, all with the purpose of enabling designers to focus on differentiating features and an accelerated time-to-market for ARM powered solutions.