Arm launches TCS23, what are the highlights?

Recently, Arm announced the launch of 2023 Total Computing Solution (TCS23). TCS23 provides a complete set of the latest IP designed and optimized for specific workloads, including the latest CPU IP Cortex-X4, Cortex-A720 and Cortex-A520, the latest GPU Immortalis-G720, Mali-G720 and Mali-G620, as well as important updates in the security area.

Arm also emphasized that all large and small cores have achieved migration to 64-bit. Chris Bergey, Arm’s senior vice president and general manager of the terminal business unit, said: “Arm began to bring 64-bit processors to the market ten years ago. The transition to 64-bit computing is a slow process, and we believe that only supporting 64-bit will not only ensure higher performance, but also further strengthen computing security.”

In addition, with Armv9 CPU, Arm continues to successfully deploy Arm Memory Tag Extensions (MTE) capabilities across the entire mobile ecosystem to eliminate memory security vulnerabilities that account for up to 70% of all software vulnerabilities.

Taking stock of TCS22

Zou Ting, Global Vice President of Arm China Business, spoke highly of the success of Arm TCS22. For example, he said that Qualcomm’s second-generation Snapdragon 8 mobile platform based on Arm 2022 comprehensive computing solution has achieved a new level of high-end connected computing and has provided services for many brands including Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus, vivo, Asus and Red Devils. Powered by innovative smartphones. Through cooperation with MediaTek, MediaTek’s TCS22-based Dimensity 9200 mobile chipset has been used in high-scoring OPPO and vivo smartphones. As for GPUs, Immortalis is Arm's first mobile GPU based on hardware ray tracing technology, providing a better user experience for large mobile games such as "Genshin Impact".

Fifth generation GPU Immortalis-G720

Arm Immortalis-G720 is Arm's current GPU with the best performance and energy efficiency. Compared with the previous generation Immortalis-G715, its performance and energy efficiency have increased by 15% respectively, and system-level efficiency has jumped by 40%, resulting in higher quality. Graphic rendering to achieve a more immersive visual experience.

Zou Ting introduced that the fifth-generation Arm Immortalis™ GPU was designed with both the CPU and the system in mind. The architecture redefines parts of the graphics pipeline and significantly reduces memory bandwidth, thereby optimizing overall system efficiency and power consumption by up to 14%. Such a huge improvement can help achieve better visual effects within the same power budget; or provide a longer-lasting immersive mobile experience while saving power consumption. The introduction of deferred vertex shading (DVS) redefines graphics data flow in GPUs and will be key for future graphics and geometrically complex workloads, helping partners scale core counts and reach higher performance levels in the future. The Mali-G720 and Mali-G620 bring premium graphics capabilities to a wider range of consumer devices.

Fourth generation CPU Cortex-X

Cortex-X4 improves performance by 15% and brings an energy-efficient microarchitecture that can significantly reduce power consumption by up to 40%, while increasing area by only 10%.

Double-digit IPC increases provide better peak performance for single-threaded burst workloads, such as launching applications on smartphones, web browsing, page loading and rendering, and camera functions. L2 cache up to 2MB per core, suitable for a wide range of consumer devices.

More importantly, Arm's new generation A-series CPUs only support 64-bit. Most Android mobile devices today deploy operating system versions (5.0 and above) that support both 64-bit and 32-bit Android runtimes, but this comes at the cost of additional memory, development, and testing. Developing 64-bit applications as part of the transition to pure 64-bit mobile devices means reducing complexity, lowering development and testing costs, and shortening time to market. It also allows the Android ecosystem to focus on supporting newer features and technologies with advanced performance and robustness not possible with 32-bit architecture.

Chris Bergey said that in China's top app stores, the top 3,000 apps are 100% 64-bit compatible. Starting in August 2021, Google Play will stop providing 32-bit applications to mobile devices that support 64-bit.

The move to 64-bit only in the mobile market represents a "win-win" for the entire ecosystem, providing performance and security benefits.

Enhance ML and AI capabilities

Arm continues to improve the machine learning capabilities of hardware, allowing developers to take full advantage of AI and ML workloads. "Take the latest smartphone platform as an example. The performance improvements of Arm CPU and GPU have driven AI processing capabilities to double approximately every two years." Zou Ting said.

Ian Smythe, vice president of product marketing at Arm, said complex artificial intelligence brings unique performance challenges to devices. A single machine learning workload often requires different computing requirements from different computing domains on the SoC. For example, in the dual-camera portrait mode photography function, the CPU can be used for pre- and post-processing of images, and the GPU is used to analyze and calculate depth information, which is then sent back to the CPU to apply background blur, and then sent back to the GPU again to apply super resolution.

"This kind of joint optimization between different IP blocks will not only perform better in game performance, but also perform better in AI and ML performance."

Comprehensive deployment of MTE

Several years have passed since Arm released the white paper Armv8.5-A Memory Tagging Extension (MTE Memory Tagging Extension) in 2019, which introduced MTE to address the challenge of memory safety. Memory safety vulnerabilities account for 70% of all software vulnerabilities. Soon after, in August 2019, Google announced that they would be working with Arm to design MTE as part of a commitment to improve the security of the Android ecosystem. Since then, different teams from Arm, Google, and their partners have been working to make MTE a reality.

According to Zou Ting, Honor has announced that it will provide devices that support MTE, and Kuaishou is also introducing MTE to improve its development process.

In order to allow developers to understand MTE faster, Arm also provides an MTE user guide for the Android operating system.

Summarize

As process nodes continue to evolve, in the development of top-level SoCs, the cycle and cost of related development, including IP verification and other related developments, are becoming higher and higher, and chip development must be increasingly system-oriented. Arm’s TCS is moving beyond individual IP elements by taking a holistic, solution-centric SoC design approach to design and optimize the system as a whole.

"First of all, Arm is an expert in CPUs, providing system-level solutions from transistors to software stacks. Arm works closely with partners, jointly conducts market development, and achieves design innovation in end products. All of these work together to create the most Excellent platform. The combination of Arm's best IP, broad partners and continued investment in the software ecosystem makes our products the first choice in the market," concluded Chris Bergey.

In addition, Arm has promised to increase investment in future key IP such as Krake GPU and Blackhawk CPU to obtain richer and more immersive experiences from mobile devices.