SoC Design

Energy Efficiency and Air Conditioning - Part 2: ARM Cortex-A7

Posted by Ashley Stevens,

25 October 2011

ARM Cortex-A7 processor…It's all about right-sized equipment.
In Part 1 of this blog we saw how right-sizing of air conditioning is vitally important because it performs three different functions simultaneously: Cooling, dehumidification and ventilation. Increases in efficiency could be obtained by separating out these three functions and optimizing them independently. As we saw last time, pumping air through ducts is inefficient due to the wasted pumping energy. You could use a hydronic system like a traditional underfloor heating system as is common in northern Europe, but with cooling in the ceiling as well as heating in the floor. Pumping water is a more efficient way to move energy than air. Even though the water pipe is physically smaller than an air duct, in terms of thermal energy transfer capacity it's a fatter pipe. But this wouldn't dehumidify or ventilate, so you'd still need a very small A/C system with air ducts to provide these functions. Duct size and pumping losses would be much lower than a pure ducted central air system though...

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Designing an ARM Based SoC: How to Meet Your Power Budget

Posted by Guest Partner Blog,

14 September 2011

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ARM IP and ARM processor usage is pervasive across multiple segments of the electronics industry. As shown in Figure 1, each of these market segments have unique design challenges and analysis drivers. For example, a SoC targeting a mobile handset or tablet will require high-performance, while still meeting the overall power budget. Memory and I/O IP on the other hand, must be designed for immunity to noise that is coupled via the power grid routing, the package, or the substrate. SoCs targeting automotive or medical industries must meet high reliability standards and minimize their electromagnetic interface (EMI) signature.

Figure 1: Market segment specific design considerations for an ARM IP based SoC.

Using a power and noise budgeting methodology...

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Hot Chips Takes a Walk Down Memory Lane - Part 1

Posted by Simon Segars,

31 August 2011

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Recently I gave a keynote presentation at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford University entitled “ARM Processor Evolution: Bringing High Performance to Mobile Devices”. In my talk I covered three main topics. First, how computing has evolved over the last 30 years from its desk bound origins to the ultra mobile world we know today. Second I talked about ARM’s role in that evolution and some of our early experiences of mobile devices. Finally, I spoke about some of the challenges I see ahead of us. In this blog I will give a recap of my presentation. Here in part 1 I’ll cover the history, and in part 2 look to the future.

Back to the 80’s
There is no doubt that personal computing has come a long way in the last 30 years. In my presentation I started by looking at the leading mobile devices from the early 80’s, namely the Osborne 1 and the Motorola DynaTAC. Launched in 1981, the Osborne 1 is widely recognized as the first portable computer. Weighing in at a solid 24.5lbs, it would be a brave man who carried that on a round-the-world business trip, esp...

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Elba - Bringing it all together

Posted by John Goodacre,

13 July 2011

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In the previous three blogs (Parts 1, 2 and 3) I’ve outlined the background and key decisions involved in the development and implementation of the Elba testchip. Now we’ll look at the final steps taken to bring Elba to life.

As our understanding of the various components broadened, the actual SoC architecture design activity then knew the details it needed in order finalize the design. We knew we had two Cortex-A9 macros, a Mali GPU and the various other components, but not too much about how we would best plug them together. Since we also wanted to investigate system level power management, many of the large system components were also placed into their own independent power domains. The layout of the design also became rather ...

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"Wouldn't it be interesting if we..." - Giving Birth to 'Elba'

Posted by John Goodacre,

05 July 2011

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“Wouldn’t it be interesting if we....” That’s the way many step changes have started in ARM. In the next four blogs I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about just one of those, we called it “The Elba Program”. The Elba program is just coming to its end, but its effect is starting to be seen in various places across the web as new markets and devices are starting to appear.

First, a very basic history lesson. ARM processors really took off as the processor that powered the first mobile phones. Phones as I’m sure you know need to be turned on to receive a call, and until more recently most calls were fairly short in comparison to the time a phone sat in what was called standby mode. This requirement quickly became the dominant characteristic for embedded processors and drove an entire branch of the semiconductor industry to look at manufacturing devices that consumed as little energy as possible when in standby at the cost of higher energy consumption when active. At the fabrication level, this technology gained a geometry label “LP” (low power), to differentiate it from the “G” (generic) process that was used by the more general purpose microprocessors.
...

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