Following an increase demand in wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices, the British giant chip manufacturer has again, launched another processor, Cortex-A32 which will solely power wearable and IoT connected devices alike.
After last week's announcement of the Cortex-R8 processor, today, ARM announces the Cortex-A32 bit architecture at the Mobile World Congress 2016 event which is currently going on in Barcelona, Spain. While maintaining ultra-high energy efficiency in mind; the newly launched processor targets wearable and IoT devices.
Going deep into its architectural design, the Cortex-A32 looks quite similar to Cortex-A35 processor but its performance can boost up to that of quad core implementation. The Cortex-A32 can still maintain less the 75mW when clocked at 1GHz frequency. The Cortex-A32 is configurable in nature and allows hardware vendors to toggle L1 cache sizes from 8KB to 32KB and L2 configurable to up to 1MB in size.
James McNiven, General Manager, CPU Group at ARM commented: "The Cortex-A32 processor, enabled with secure ARM TrustZone technology, builds on the trail blazed by the Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A7 processors in embedded applications such as single-board computing, IoT edge nodes and wearables."
"It brings greater performance, efficiency and other benefits of the ARMv8-A architecture for ARM's silicon partners to innovate on for richer, more secure embedded systems."
Embedded applications have seen a wide adoption of Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A7 processors which are all based on the AMv7-A architecture, and these processors have powered millions of embedded applications today. According to what the company said; the new Cortex-A32 is 25 percent more efficient than the current leading ARM embedded 32-bit core, the Cortex-A7, and delivers higher performance while using less power.
In its smallest configuration, the Cortex-A32 occupies less than 0.25 mm2 of silicon area while consuming less than 4mW of total power at 100 MHz in a 28nm process node.
Hardware manufacturers can configure the Cortex-A32 in multiple ways whether single, dual or even quad core, this makes the new processor as flexible as possible to serve all the industrial IoT devices ranging from basic to more complex ones.
"IoT nodes have become increasingly diverse, with the more sophisticated nodes often requiring a rich OS," said Maarten Ectors, Vice President, IoT, Canonical.
"Combining Snappy Ubuntu Core and the highly-efficient processing and scalability of Cortex-A32 will enable developers to truly push the boundaries of edge devices for IoT" The company said.
Talking about security, the company built the Cortex-A32 with TrustZone encryption technology to ensure no third-party can intersect messages being exchanged between the connected IoT and wearable devices. TrustZone has been adopted by many hardware manufacturers to provide banking-class level of encryption for modern devices.
The Cortex-A32 can also be coupled with TrustZone CryptoCell-700 series products to enable enhanced cryptographic hardware acceleration and advanced root of trust.
Cortex-A series processing already provides solution to diverse embedded applications such as automotive infotainment, industrial controllers, industrial robots and wearable devices. With more than 100 Cortex-A based single board computers and an unrivalled choice of rich embedded software in place, the Cortex-A32 joins the Cortex-A family in providing embedded designers with a rapid and low-cost route to systems and software development.
Smartphone users probably won't see the Cortex-A32 powering any of their devices anytime soon; the new processor that was just announced at the on-going Mobile World Congress 2016 event in Barcelona will solely power smart devices that will appear no sooner than first half of 2017.
This means that end-use products using Cortex-A32 will be on the market by the end of 2017 and further expanding on ARM's strength in IoT.
- See more at:
http://www.biztekmojo.com/002099/ar...nd-iot-connected-devices#sthash.JPlV6E4q.dpuf
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