Date: 23/04/2012

Cortex-A15 quad-core hard macro announced by ARM

ARM has announced the availability of a quad-core hard macro implementation of its flagship ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore processor.

The ARM Cortex-A15 MP4 hard macro is designed to run at 2GHz and delivers performance in excess of 20,000DMIPS, while maintaining the power efficiency of the Cortex-A9 hard macro. The combination of ARM Cortex processor IP, Artisan physical IP, CoreLink systems IP and TSMC 28HPM process helped the development of the Cortex-A15 hard macro.

The NEON SIMD technology and the floating point (VFP) are featured for low leakage power implementation and hence this chip is suitable for computing applications such as notebooks, network devices, etc.

The hard macro was developed using ARM Artisan 12-track libraries and the processor optimization pack (POP) solution for the Cortex-A15 on TSMC 28nm HPM process.

"For SoC designers looking to make a trade-off between the flexibility offered by the traditional RTL-based SoC development strategy and a rapid time to market, with ensured, benchmarked power, performance and area, an ARM hard macro implementation is an ideal, cost-effective solution," said Jim Nicholas, vice president of marketing, processor division, ARM. "This new Cortex-A15 hard macro is an important addition to our portfolio and will enable a wider array of partners to leverage the outstanding capabilities of the Cortex-A15 processor."