Arm has leveraged its Total Compute Solutions 2023 (TCS23) to offer its new suite of product IPs, spanning processor (CPU), graphics (GPU), and system. The company’s goal is to provide a broad range of computing capabilities and for use cases such as next-generation mobile devices.
On the TCS23 release list is the ARMv9.2 compute cluster, which is comprised of the new Cortex-X4, Cortex-A720 and Cortex-A520 cores , plus the new DynamicIQ shared unit, DSU-120, which provides improvements of performance, efficiency and power of two percentage digits. On the GPU front, performance and efficiency have also been improved with the new fifth-generation architecture, from which the Immortalis-G720, Mali-G720 and Mali-G620 graphics processors are derived. Arm mentions a 21% graphics performance improvement with the Manhattan 3.0 benchmark.
The new CPU cores only support 64-bit tasks and can be used in a cluster of up to 14 cores thanks to the new design of the aforementioned DSU-120. Arm says it has seen a 27% performance increase on a 1 + 5 + 2 (X4 + A720 + A520) core configuration over the previous 1 + 4 + 3 build, which was the big benchmark of the brand and is implemented in processors such as Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and MediaTek Dimensity 9200/9200+ . In specific tasks such as web browsing, the company has reported a 33% improvement in performance.
Going a little deeper into the cores, the Cortex-X4 takes up 10% less space and improves efficiency by 40% over the Cortex-X3 core. The Cortex-A720 improves efficiency by about 20% compared to the Cortex-A715 and the Cortex-A520 becomes the first upgrade in two years of the efficient cores to improve the efficiency provided by the Cortex-A510 by 8 %.
The new configuration of cores exposed by Arm is exactly the same that has been leaked on several occasions about the one that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC is supposed to use , which reinforces the information that we have been seeing in recent months. The 1 + 5 + 2 core configuration is expected to be present in the future MediaTek Dimensity 9300 as well. The Cortex-X4 core is likely to be reserved only for high-end device models, which could also be the case for the Immortalis-G720 graphics processor.
Other interesting data exposed by Arm are an average reduction of 30% in the use of bandwidth and an average energy saving of 20% in the execution of video games. It is important to bear in mind that the gains in terms of performance and efficiency are not things that will reach all users in a homogeneous way, since this depends on the flow of use of each one.
It seems that Arm has everything ready to license what would become the next generation of top-of-the-range SoCs, although the Cortex-A720 and Cortex-A520 cores and the Mali-G720 and Mali-G620 graphics processors indicate that they will be implemented. in lower range SoCs.