ARM big_LITTLE 处理技术白皮书.pdfVIP

Big.LITTLE Processing with ARM Cortex™-A15 Cortex-A7 Improving Energy Efficiency in High-Performance Mobile Platforms Peter Greenhalgh, ARM September 2011 This paper presents the rationale and design behind the first big.LITTLE system from ARM based on the high-performance Cortex-A15 processor, the energy efficient Cortex-A7 processor, the coherent CCI-400 interconnect and supporting IP. Contents Contents 1 Introduction 2 The Processors 2 The System 4 big.LITTLE Task Migration Use Model 5 big.LITTLE MP Use Model 7 Software 7 Conclusion 8 Copyright © 2011 ARM Limited. All rights reserved. The ARM logo is a registered trademark of ARM Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are acknowledged Page 1 of 8 Introduction The range of performance being demanded from modern, high-performance, mobile platforms is unprecedented. Users require platforms to be accomplished at high processing intensity tasks such as gaming and web browsing while providing long battery life for low processing intensity tasks such as texting, e-mail and audio. ® In the first big.LITTLE system from ARM a ‘big’ ARM Cortex™-A15 processor is paired with a ‘LITTLE’ Cortex™-A7 processor to create a system that can accomplish both high intensity and low intensity tasks in the most energy efficient manner. By coherently connecting the Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 processors via the CCI-400 coherent interconnect the system is flexible enough to support a variety of big.LITTLE use models, which can be tailored to the processing requirements of the tasks.