ARM Shows Off 64-bit Cortex-A50 for Use by AMD and Others

Category: CPU's
Posted: November 2, 2012 02:49PM
Author: bp9801

It was just the other day when AMD announced it'll be building licensed 64-bit ARM processors, and now we have a pretty good idea at just what these chips will be. ARM has introduced a new series it's calling the Cortex-A50, which is based on the 64-bit ARMv8 architecture. The first chips will arrive in 2014 and one of the licenses is AMD, which lines up perfectly with its 64-bit SoC Opteron chips. ARM's Cortex-A50 has two products, the A57 and A53, with the former being the company's "most advanced high-performance applications processor," and the latter the "most power-efficient." The A53 is also the world's smallest 64-bit processor, while the A57 has the "highest single-thread performance" and compares to a "legacy PC" in terms of overall performance.

Both processors can run independently or in an ARM big.LITTLE configuration for high power and efficiency, and "target multi-GHz performance on advanced CMOS and FinFET processes technologies." FinFET refers to three-dimensional transistors, and GlobalFoundries, which produces AMD's processors, and GloFo are both capable of producing FinFET devices. It's not known if the first Cortex-A50 series processors will use that process, but it's a possibility.