ARM has revealed additional details on the coming Eagle architecture, now dubbed Cortex A15. The new architecture will appear in several varieties and the goal isn’t just smartphones but also notebooks.
Cortex A15 will get up to four cores with clock frequencies between 1.5 GHz to 2.5 GHz and according to ARM performance will be up to 5 times better than the current Cortex A8 architecture. This superscalar out-of-order architecture will be capable of handling longer and more advanced instructions than before, and come with both L1 and L2 cache for optimized performance. The new circuits will be made with 32/28nm technology and ready to take on several different markets.
Applications of Cortex A15:
- Advancerad smartphones
- Mobile computers
- High-end Digital Home Entertainment
- Wireless infrastructure
- Low power servers
ARM’s idea is to use single or dual-core circuits with smartphones, running at clock frequencies between 1.0-1.5 GHz, hoping it will be enough in the years to come. When considering the more demanding applications like energy efficient servers and network solutions ARM is considering all four cores and clock frequencies between 1.5-2.5 GHz for performance when needed.
ARM has started marching into computer territory with the first Cortex A9 circuits (NVIDIA Tegra 2, Samsung Orion, TI OMAP 4) that are expected to be used in more advanced products than previous architectures.
Several circuit makers have acquired licenses for ARM’s new Eagle architecture, including Texas Instruments.
ARM Cortex A15 Eagle is a few years into the future, but it seems all the more clear that Intel and ARM are heading for a full-on collision.
