The Cortex-A8 Microprocessor

Mobile communication devices manufacture is one of the fastest growing industry today. Therefore, manufacturers are continually looking for flexible, high-performance processing solutions that can meet the needs of the low-power, cost sensitive markets. Smart phones have the ability to provide one with entertainment, gaming, internet services and seamless connectivity to digital entertainment devices. All of these are expected from mobile phone devices today. The need for a high performance processor that can meet demanding performance requirements has become a must. This paper focuses on the most power efficient and the highest performance processor available in the market today, the Cortex-A8 Microprocessor. Developed by ARM, Cortes-A8 processor is designed to meet the requirements for power-optimized mobile devices with a power budget of less than 300mWand for performance optimized consumer applications requiring 2000 Dhrystone MIPS. It is built with sophisticated pipeline architecture, which is based on dual, symmetric, in-order issue, 13-stage pipelines with advanced dynamic branch prediction and static scheduling achieving 2.0 DMIPS/MHz. Its enhanced design flows with supportive pure synthesis and a structured, custom design. This processor has become extremely popular as it is easy to use in complex systems and supports innovative new products like RealView SoC Designer, System Generator, RealView Development Suite 3.1 with optional Vectorizing Compiler, AMBA Designer interconnect design tool, CoreSight debug and trace, RealView Hardware Platforms and early software development and SoC prototyping.