Introduction to ARM processor series

It is now March, and the Chinese New Year has been too comfortable. The series of blogs has been suspended for nearly half a month. I am indeed a slow person. So I will take advantage of the first night of school to write a blog to continue my series of blogs! As we all know, ARM processors are widely used. Now I will introduce some processors based on ARM architecture:

• ARM7

• ARM9

• ARM9E

• ARM10E

• SecurCore

• ARM11

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Introduction to ARM Processor

Next, I will introduce the ARM processor to you from the above-mentioned processors.

ARM7 series

The ARM7 series processors are low-power 32-bit RISC processors. They are mainly used in consumer products that have strict requirements on power consumption and cost. The ARM7 series processors also support the 16-bit Thumb instruction set. The ARM7 series on the market include ARM7TDMI, ARM7TDMI-S, ARM7EJ-S and ARM720T!

ARM7 series processor application scope

• Personal audio devices (MP3)

• Access-level wireless equipment

• Inkjet Printers

• Digital Camera

• PDA

ARM7 series processor features

• Mature 32-bit RICS chip

• Low power consumption

• Compatible with 16-bit processors, high code density

• Supported by major operating systems (Window CE, Symbian OS, Linux)

• Has an excellent debugging mechanism

• Compatible with ARM9 series, ARM9E, ARM10E

ARM9 series

Mainly including ARM9TDMI and ARM9E-S series, ARM9 adopts Harvard architecture, instructions and data belong to different buses, can be processed in parallel. On the pipeline, ARM7 is a three-stage pipeline, ARM9 is a five-stage pipeline. Due to the different structures, the execution efficiency of ARM7 is lower than that of ARM9. The ARM7 and ARM9 usually refer to ARM7TDMI and ARM9TDMI soft cores. This kind of processor soft core does not have MMU and cache, and cannot run embedded operating systems such as Linux.

ARM9 series processor application scope

• video call

• Consumer electronics: set-top boxes, etc.

• Digital Camera

• Imaging equipment

• Automobile, communication system

ARM9 series processor features

• Supports 32-bit ARM instructions and 16-bit Thumb instructions

• Five-stage assembly line

• Not only supports general operating systems but also supports real-time operating systems

• Unified data cache and instruction cache

ARM9E Series

The ARM9E series microprocessors are integrated processors that provide solutions for microcontrollers, DSPs, and Java application systems using only a single processor core, greatly reducing the chip area and system complexity, lowering power consumption, and shortening product launch time. The ARM9E series microprocessors provide enhanced DSP processing capabilities and are very suitable for applications that require the simultaneous use of fast digital signal processing (DSP) and microcontrollers. The ARM9E series microprocessors include three types: ARM926EJ-S, ARM946E-S, and ARM966E-S. The ARM926EJ-S includes Jazzele technology, which can run Java code directly through hardware, improving the performance of the system running Java code.

ARM9E series processor application scope

• Next generation wireless devices

• Digital consumer products: set-top boxes, etc.

• Imaging equipment

• Storage devices

• industrial control

• Automobile, communication system

• Internet equipment

ARM9E series processor features

• Supports 32-bit ARM instructions and 16-bit Thumb instructions

• Contains DSP instruction set

• Five-stage assembly line

• Support AMBA bus interface

• Optional floating point processing coprocessor

• Not only supports general operating systems but also supports real-time operating systems

• Unified data cache and instruction cache

ARM10E Series

The E in RM10E means the same as in ARM9E, Enhance instrctions, which means enhanced DSP instructions, indicating that ARM9E is actually an expansion and variant of ARM9. The ARM10E series microprocessors are integrated processors that use a single processor core to provide solutions for microcontrollers, DSPs, and Java application systems, greatly reducing the chip area and system complexity. The ARM9E series microprocessors provide enhanced DSP processing capabilities and are very suitable for applications that require the use of DSPs and microcontrollers at the same time.

The difference between ARM10E and ARM9E is that ARM10E uses Harvard structure, 6-stage pipeline, and the main frequency can reach up to 325MHZ, 1.35MIPS/HZ

ARM10E series processor application scope

• Next generation wireless devices

• Digital consumer products

• Imaging equipment

• Storage devices

• industrial control

• Automobile, communication system

• Internet equipment

ARM10E series processor features

• Supports 32-bit ARM instructions and 16-bit Thumb instructions

• Contains DSP instruction set

• Six-stage assembly line

• Support AMBA bus interface

• Optional floating point processing coprocessor

• Not only supports general operating systems but also supports real-time operating systems

• Unified data cache and instruction cache

• High-performance AHB

SecurCore Series

The ARM SecurCore™ processor family provides powerful 32-bit security solutions based on the industry-leading ARM architecture. By enhancing the already successful ARM processor with a variety of security features, SecurCore has introduced smart cards so that security IC developers can easily take advantage of the benefits of ARM 32-bit technology (such as small die size, high energy efficiency, low cost, excellent code density and outstanding performance). SecurCore processors can be used in a wide range of security applications, and their performance exceeds that of older 8-bit or 16-bit security processors.

Application scope of SecurCore series processors

• E-commerce

• Internet banking

• Network and mobile media authentication system

SecurCore Series Processor Features

• Supports 32-bit ARM instructions and 16-bit Thumb instructions

• Using soft core technology

• Extremely safe

• Provides protection units for smart cards and low-cost storage

• Can integrate user's own security features and other processors

ARM11 series

The ARM11 processor family provides engines that power many smartphones in production today and is widely used in consumer, home and embedded applications. The processor consumes very low power and provides performance ranging from 350 MHz in small area designs to 1 GHz in speed optimized designs (45 nm and 65 nm). The ARM11 processor is software compatible with all previous ARM processors and introduces 32-bit SIMD for media processing, physically tagged caches for improved operating system context switching performance, TrustZone for hardware-enforced security, and tightly coupled memory for real-time applications.

ARM11 series processor features

• The Thumb instruction set can reduce memory bandwidth and size requirements by up to 35%

• ARM Jazelle® technology for efficient embedded Java execution

• ARM DSP extensions

• SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) media processing extensions provide up to 2x video processing performance

• ARM TrustZone® technology (ARM1176JZ-S and ARM1176JZF-S processors) as the foundation for on-chip security Thumb-2 technology (ARM1156(F)-S only) for improved performance, power efficiency and code density

• Low power consumption: 0.21 mW/MHz (65G), including cache controller, power-saving shutdown mode to handle static leakage in advanced processes

• High-performance integer processor: 8-stage integer pipeline providing high clock frequency (9-stage for ARM1156T2(F)-S)
  Separate load-store and arithmetic pipelines, branch prediction and return stack

  High-performance memory system design:

• Support 4-64k cache size

• Optional tightly coupled memory with DMA for multimedia applications

• For media processing and network applications, high-performance 64-bit memory system speeds up data access

• ARMv6 memory system architecture speeds up OS context switching

• Vectored interrupt interface and low interrupt latency mode improve interrupt response speed and real-time performance

• Optional vector floating-point coprocessor for automotive/industrial control and 3D graphics acceleration (ARM1136JF-S, ARM1176JZF-S and ARM1156T2F-S processors)

• 所有 ARM11 系列处理器都作为符合 ARM-Synopsys 参考方法的可交付项来提供，从而显著缩短了生成内核的特定技术实现的时间，以及生成一组完整的行业标准视图和模型的时间