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An Introduction To The Major ARM-Based SoCs

By Lucian Armasu, Dorian Black , AUGUST 21, 2014 9:00 AM

1. ARM Holdings: Where It All Begins

History
ARM is a multinational fabless semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England. It was
founded in 1990 through a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple, and VLSI Technology. The company's
name originally came from Acorn RISC Machine. At the time of incorporation in 1990, ARM became Advanced RISC
Machines Ltd. Later, when it went public in 1998, the name changed again to ARM Holdings.
Throughout its history, ARM has acquired multiple companies. One of the most notable was 3D graphics firm Falanx,
which owned the technology that paved the way for Mali and turned ARM from mainly a CPU IP designer into a provider of graphics processing, too. Of
course, Mali GPUs are perhaps best known for their role in Samsung's Exynos chips, but also in many SoC from China. Imagination remains the leader in
mobile graphics, but thanks to those Chinese chip companies and the popularity of Samsungs devices, Malis market share is on a steady rise.

ARM is mainly using the ARMv7 instruction set, and its deprecating the ARMv6 ISA (even at the lowest end of the market), with ARM11 CPUs based on
ARMv6 being replaced by the ARMv7-based Cortex-A5 and -A7. ARM is also about to transition to the brand new 64-bit ISA, ARMv8, which will facilitate
products like Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57, along with the already-shipping Apple A7 and upcoming Denver CPU core from Nvidia.

Business Model

Unlike Intel, ARM doesnt build its own chips. It only designs them. Then, companies with access to manufacturing license the intellectual property. ARM's
approach allowed its technology to become ubiquitous in the mobile market, and ARM-based processors are now in billions of devices.

ARM currently sells a variety of CPU and GPU IP, from ultra-efficient and low-end CPU cores like Cortex-A5 and -A7, to higher-performance ones like
Cortex-A15, as well as the new ARMv8-based Cortex-A53 and -A57. At the same time, it has granted architecture licenses to companies like Qualcomm,
Apple, and, more recently, Nvidia, which all have proprietary SoCs based on the ARMv7 or ARMv8 ISA. This model allows the flexibility needed for each
contender in the space to differentiate, giving us the diversity in platforms we enjoy today.

2. Qualcomm's Snapdragon Line of SoCs

Qualcomm is currently the biggest chip maker in the mobile market thanks to its popular Snapdragon brand.

Snapdragon Series
The first series of Snapdragon SoCs came equipped with the ARMv7-based Scorpion core, which was similar in
performance and functionality to ARM's own Cortex-A8. However, because it arrived earlier (thanks to Qualcomms
licensing of the ARMv7 architecture), the San Diego, California-based company dominated the space. Its Snapdragon

branding also seemed to be more effective in winning mind share. The arrival of the first Snapdragon chips synchronizes well with Android's rapid ascent
back in 2010.
We've seen three Scorpion-based processors: S1 with Adreno 200 graphics, S2 with the Adreno 205 GPU, and the dual-core S3 with Adreno 220 onboard.
In 2012, Qualcomm introduced a brand new custom processor core called Krait, which heralded large performance and efficiency improvements. The first
incarnation of Krait was the dual-core S4 that came with an Adreno 225 engine. A cutting-edge ARM-based core and an early move to 28 nm
manufacturing further entrenched Qualcomm in its leadership position. The S4 Play, Plus, Pro, and Prime followed in an expansion of the family to allow
for a greater variety of models.
The year after, Qualcomm rebranded its portfolio, creating Snapdragon 200, 400, 600, and 800. Many of the SoCs previously belonging to the S4 line
were re-categorized. Small changes, such as the introduction of LPDDR3 system memory, were made, too.
Since then, we've seen a handful of incremental releases, including the Snapdragon 410 (December 2013) with four Cortex-A53 cores, the quad-core
602A, the 610 with hardware-based HEVC decode acceleration, an octa-core Snapdragon 615, an 801, 805, 808, and hexa-core 810, the latter three
boasting next-gen Adreno graphics, too.

Snapdragon 801
The Snapdragon 801 is one of Qualcomms latest and greatest SoCs seeing real availability. It's currently shipping in smartphone flagships like
Samsung's Galaxy S5, HTC's M8, Sony's Xperia Z2, and LG's G3.

Unfortunately, the 801 isn't a radical departure from the Snapdragon 800, and only has slight improvements in performance for its CPU and GPU. For
instance, it runs at up to 2.45 GHz compared to the 800's peak of 2.26/2.36 GHz. Its Adreno 330 engine now runs at up to 578 MHz instead of 450 MHz,
also.
Compared to the Snapdragon 800, the newer 801 also comes with support for faster eMMC 5.0 flash storage. Everything else remains mostly unchanged
until the arrival of Snapdragon 805 later this year, which will come with Adreno 400-series graphics.

3. Samsung's Exynos Line of SoCs

Unlike Qualcomm, Apple, and now Nvidia, Samsung doesnt design its own CPUs. Instead, it licenses both the CPU
and GPU logic from ARM. However, one advantage Samsung has is that it manufactures the chips itself, and doesnt
have to pay other foundries to do it.

Exynos Series
Samsung shipped its first Exynos (3) SoC in 2010 alongside its highly successful (at the time) Galaxy S smartphone.
Exynos 3 came with a single-core 1 GHz Cortex-A8 CPU, which, at the time, was the only popular mobile processor in an Android device that wasn't a
Snapdragon. Apple launched its iPhone 4 around the same time that also featured a Cortex-A8, though that one operated at 800 MHz.
A year later came the Exynos 4210, Samsungs first dual-core chip, which appeared in the company's Galaxy S2. It included Mali-400 graphics, a part
that went on to become quite popular in other devices.
Not long after, Samsung introduced the Exynos 4212 in its Galaxy Note with a host processing complex running 200 MHz faster and a GPU purportedly
50% quicker. The Note had a 1280x800 resolution, and of course that was quite a bit higher than the Galaxy S2's 800x480 screen, necessitating
increased graphics processing.
In 2012, Samsung shipped its first quad-core chip, Exynos 4 Quad, inside the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 smartphones. It also used 20% less power
than the previous-generation SoC, while retaining a quad-core Mali-400 GPU.
Towards the end of the year, Samsung began using the Exynos 5 Dual, based on Cortex-A15, in its Nexus 10 tablet. The processor was significantly more
powerful even than the Exynos 4 Quad and had Mali-T604 graphics employing the new unified shader Midgard architecture. This chip was also used in the
most popular Chromebook device at the time, helping the machine hit a low $250 price point, while offering respectable performance.

Exynos 5 Octa
In 2013, Samsung shipped its first eight-core chip for the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3. It was named Exynos 5 Octa, or Exynos 5410.
Exynos 5 Octa was the first SoC based on ARM's big.Little configuration, made of four-core Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 CPU clusters able to work
separately to save battery life or together for maximum performance.

The part ended up with several issues, many related to firmware. This wasn't surprising, given the technology's newness. Samsungs engineers were still
learning how to make the Cortex-A7s and -A15s work well together, in the most energy efficient way. Because of those problems, and because
Qualcomm had better LTE modem integration in its SoC, Samsung continues using Snapdragon processors in most of its markets.
To make matters even more complicated, Samsung also stepped back to using PowerVR graphics for this SoC, instead of the Mali architecture.
Presumably, it did that because ARMs Mali-T628 wasnt ready, giving the company no other choice.
This year, Samsung changed direction again and went back to Mali-T628MP6 graphics. It also seems to have fixed the issues with Exynos 5 Octa in a new
Exynos 5422 version. The latest revision also sports a 300 MHz boost to its Cortex-A15 cores and an extra 100 MHz for the Cortex-A7 cores. Moreover,
Samsung added a mode that makes all eight cores operate at the same time, when needed, rather than completely separate the two clusters.

4. Apple's A-Series SoCs

Over the past few years, Apple demonstrated an increasing desire to create its own custom SoC hardware, tuning
architecture, differentiating functionality, and optimizing for cost.

Apple A-Series
Until the iPad and iPhone 4, Apple only used off-the-shelf SoCs from other companies. At that point, however, it
began adding more customization. The CPU and GPU were still reference (800 MHz Cortex-A8 and PowerVR SGX535).
However, Apple implemented technology around those complexes to improve battery life.
In 2011, the following year, Apple shipped the A5 SoC in its iPad and iPhone. Also designed by Apple (naturally), the A5 employed a dual-core 1 GHz
Cortex-A9 CPU and PowerVR SGX543MP2 graphics engine that were much faster that their predecessors and could handle higher resolutions much
better.
The third-gen iPad emerged in 2012 with an Apple A5X. It was almost identical to the A5 but had twice as many GPU cores. Therefore, in graphics-bound
titles, it was up to two times as fast. Apple's newer GPU was nevertheless unable to properly handle the iPad's Retina screen. Even though it was twice as
powerful, the new iPad had four times as many pixels, requiring even more performance to match its predecessor. So, later that same year, Apple
introduced the iPad 4 with an A6X SoC that not only quadrupled the A5's graphics potential, but also included a proprietary dual-core Swift host
processor running at 1.3 GHz. In a great many cases, it was faster than the competition. That was a first for Apple. Up until then, the company tended to
go conservative with its host processor, preferring to favor long battery life, which invariably led to weaker benchmark results.

Apple A7
The A7 took everyone off-guard, especially competing SoC-makers. No one was expecting a CPU based on the ARMv8 instruction set to arrive for at least
another year. But Apple released one in late 2013.
Even now, Qualcomm, the mobile chip leader, doesnt have its own ARMv8-based architecture. Its only imminent releases involve off-the-shelf CortexA53 configurations bearing Snapdragon branding and the Snapdragon 808 and 810, which will utilize off-the-shelf Cortex-A57 cores. Only Nvidia is
supposed to ship its Denver CPU this year, and Samsung may or may not release an Exynos chip based on Cortex-A57.

Nobody really knows how Apple managed to design and ship an ARMv8 chip so quickly. But it did, and is milking the marketing for all it's worth by
claiming to offer the first desktop-class 64-bit chip for its phones and tablets. Competing processor companies were forced to scramble and promise their
own 64-bit devices as soon as possible, too.
Unlike Swift, which is similar to Qualcomm's Krait, the Cyclone architecture is much wider, managing to handle up to six instructions at once (compared
to three for Krait and Swift). In the real world, or at least in benchmarks, that seems to translate to roughly 50%-higher performance versus Swift at the
same 1.3 GHz frequency.
With the 64-bit Cyclone, Apple showed all chip makers, including Intel, that it's serious about making powerful processors.

5. Nvidia's Tegra Line of SoCs

So far, Nvidia is the only company from the PC space working in the mobile SoC market and seeing at least some
success. In light of its latest host and graphics processor designs, Nvidia appears to have a lot of potential in the
tablet space, especially, that still hasn't been tapped.

Tegra Series
Tegra is the name Nvidia gives to its mobile SoCs, dating back to the company's first push into the media player and
smartphone markets. The first and only contract for Tegra was signed with Microsoft for its Zune HD media player.
It wasnt until Tegra 2, with its first-ever dual-core mobile CPU and GeForce graphics, that Nvidia was taken more seriously in the mobile space.
Unfortunately, that processor shipped later than promised. And by the time it attracted attention, competitors were offering their own dual-core chips as
well. Additionally, Tegra 2 had some performance issues related to design decisions Nvidia made, which ended up frustrating the early adopters willing to
give the newcomer a shot. This resulted in recommendations to stay away from the company's SoC.
Still, when Nvidia announced Tegra 3, the first quad-core Cortex-A9-based processor, there was hope that the company had ironed out its problems.
After all, we've seen one GeForce card after another do battle in the hyper-competitive world of PC graphics. But Nvidia didn't end up conquering its
struggle against delays. By the time Tegra 3 arrived, Nvidia was forced to market it as a fast mid-range device.
This strategy proved somewhat successful, and Tegra 3 won a place inside the first Nexus 7 tablet from Google and in the first Surface RT tablet from
Microsoft. The Nexus 7 sales alone made up half of the SoC's sales. However, despite a moderate win, the fact that Nvidia didnt really have a high-end
product in the mobile market couldnt be overlooked.

Tegra 4
Tegra 4 appeared a year later with a four-core Cortex-A15 complex (plus another battery-saver -A15 companion), promising performance on par with
some of the fastest SoCs out there, which it actually delivered. However, Tegra 4 also ran into a couple of issues. One was the fact that it used an old
GPU architecture lacking unified shaders and limited to OpenGL ES 2.0-based games. Meanwhile, competitors were coming out with unified shader
architectures and OpenGL ES 3.0 support.

Nvidia was actually supposed to deliver the Kepler GPU architecture with Logan in 2013. But because Tegra 2 and 3 were delayed so severely compared
to their original schedules, Tegra 4 ended up rolling out in 2013, pushing what we now know as Tegra K1 to 2014.

The other major issue was that Tegra 4 isnt terribly efficient, resulting in its use as a tablet-oriented SoC at best. Aside from a few Chinese OEMs,
nobody's using it in a smartphone.
So, on one hand, execution problems and delays forced Nvidia to push a chip armed with obsolete graphics into 2013. And, on the other, design
decisions Nvidia made regarding performance led to it not being well-suited for smartphones, barely qualifying it for tablet form factors. Unsurprisingly,
Google dropped Nvidia as a partner for the 2013-edition Nexus 7, which was a major blow considering the previous-gen Nexus 7 represented so much of
the SoC's sales.
Fortunately for Nvidia, Tegra K1 looks a lot more appealing to both consumers and OEM partners, and well explore why soon enough.

6. Upcoming 32-bit SoCs

All four companies already sell powerful SoCs. But the market doesnt stand still, and some of them are preparing to
release revolutionary processors by the end of 2014, while others continue improving on already-successful formulas.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 805

As mentioned, Qualcomm was surprisingly slow to respond to Apples ARMv8-based A7. The 64-bit SoCs it already
announced for 2014 are lower-end, while the high-end ones wont arrive until next year. Even then, they're off-theshelf reference cores from ARM.
Thats a little strange, to say the least, from the company that assumed its leadership position by pushing the envelope and taking full advantage of
ARMs latest instruction sets, and by shipping new designs even before reference ARM-based solutions started emerging. That gave it the early adopter
advantage that made Snapdragon so successful. But for some reason, not only did Apples Cyclone announcement catch Qualcomm by surprise, but a
year later there's still no proprietary architecture based on the ARMv8 ISA.
For 2014, it prepared a slight improvement of Snapdragon 801, apparent from the Snapdragon 805 designator. The CPU is based on the Krait 450 design
now operating at up to 2.7 GHz.

The GPU gets a bigger boost with Adreno 420 graphics, though it's likely nowhere near as powerful as Nvidias Kepler-based solution, given a purported
40-percent speed-up compared to Adreno 330. Tegra K1 should be at least twice as fast as Adreno 330 (166 GFLOPS versus 365).

Qualcomms offerings for this year dont seem as compelling or competitive as Id like them to be, but the company profits from being a long-term and
trusted partner to many OEMs, so it continues raking in the design wins.

Samsung Exynos 5433

Not a lot is known about the Exynos 5433, but its rumored to arrive later this year in Samsung's Galaxy Note 4, which would make it Samsung's highestend SoC for 2014. Leaked benchmarks put it ahead of Qualcomms Snapdragon 805 in AnTuTu, though still below Nvidias Denver-based Tegra K1
(expected to surface in the fall).

What we might expect from the 5433 is another eight-core chip, probably built using a cluster of four Cortex-A7s and another cluster of four CortexA15s, perhaps manufactured at 20 nm. So, it should offer higher performance and better efficiency than the previous generation Exynos SoC.
Although an ARMv8-based Exynos has been rumored since late last year, its unlikely we'll see it in 2014. That processor will purportedly benefit from 14
nm lithography, and Samsung probably won't have that ready for mass production in the next few months. At best, we may hear more in early 2015,
just in time for a Galaxy S6 (which could also make the Exynos 6 Octa name more appropriate, if thats what it ends up being called).

7. Upcoming 64-bit SoCs

ARMv8 is the instruction set that adds support for 64-bit processing, AES encryption and SHA2 hardware acceleration, 128-bit NEON registers, and full
backwards compatibility for apps currently built for the ARMv7 ISA.

Apple A8
Since Apple is usually quite secretive, we dont know much about its next-gen SoC. There have been rumors that it'll operate at up to twice the clock rate
(2.6 GHz) though, which would either mean that Apple found a way to make Cyclone more efficient through 20 nm manufacturing or is coming out with
another architectural tweak better able to scale frequency.
The new A8 should also come with PowerVR graphics pushing twice as much performance, which is what Apple has historically done when upgrading the
GPU. The new graphics engine will prove useful, since the upcoming iPhone is rumored to employ a much higher resolution (somewhere between 702p
and 1080p) for the 4.7 screen size.

Nvidia Tegra K1
Tegra K1 is Nvidias current and highest-end mobile processor, armed with either four Cortex-A15 cores or two of the company's ARMv8-based Denver
cores, along with the Kepler architecture made popular by any number of GeForce cards.

The Denver/Kepler combination of Tegra K1 is particularly promising. On one hand, you have the 64-bit ARMv8-based CPU that should be significantly
faster than those revised Cortex-A15s in the 32-bit Tegra K1. On the other, there's Nvidias PC graphics architecture, with a handful of modifications to
be more mobile-friendly. Still, it supports APIs that other SoCs can't touch. Beyond OpenGL ES 3.1, you get OpenGL 4.4, DirectX 11.1 and CUDA.

The mobile Kepler-based GPU is also specified for performance that should go unmatched by anything except maybe Imaginations upcoming mobile
GPUs. Nvidia uses the Xbox 360 and PS3 as its comparison points in marketing material, and that should help garner attention in any set top boxes
running Android. At least in theory, PC and console games are made easier to port over thanks to comprehensive API support. Whether or not developers
jump on that remains to be seen.
While the upcoming Snapdragon and Exynos chips appear to be slight upgrades compared to current products, the most interesting chips coming out in
the mobile market this year should be Nvidias first ever proprietary CPU design, Denver, and Apples A8, both based on the ARMv8 instruction set. Both
advanced architectures, combined with the higher clock rates expected from them, should facilitate the "desktop-class" performance we've been told to
expect.
Qualcomm, Samsung, Nvidia, and Apple are all important players in the chip market now, and they've individually come a long way. But this is only the
beginning for them. It will be interesting to observe how competitive all four vendors are once they have processors based on ARM's 64-bit instruction
set, allowing them to compete on a more equal footing.