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How does ARM architecture differ from x86? What is ARM architecture? Key features of these architectures

ARM processor- mobile processor for smartphones and tablets.

This table shows all currently known ARM processors. The table of ARM processors will be supplemented and upgraded as new models appear. This table uses a conditional system for evaluating CPU and GPU performance. ARM processor performance data was taken from a variety of sources, mainly based on the results of tests such as: PassMark, Antutu, GFXBench.

We do not claim absolute accuracy. Absolutely accurately rank and evaluate the performance of ARM processors impossible, for the simple reason that each of them has advantages in some ways, but in some ways lags behind other ARM processors. The table of ARM processors allows you to see, evaluate and, most importantly, compare different SoCs (System-On-Chip) solutions. Using our table, you can compare mobile processors and it’s enough to find out exactly how the ARM heart of your future (or present) smartphone or tablet is positioned.

Here we have compared ARM processors. We looked at and compared the performance of CPU and GPU in different SoCs (System-on-Chip). But the reader may have several questions: Where are ARM processors used? What is an ARM processor? How does ARM architecture differ from x86 processors? Let's try to understand all this without going too deep into details.

First, let's define the terminology. ARM is the name of the architecture and at the same time the name of the company leading its development. The abbreviation ARM stands for (Advanced RISC Machine or Acorn RISC Machine), which can be translated as: advanced RISC machine. ARM architecture combines a family of both 32 and 64-bit microprocessor cores developed and licensed by ARM Limited. I would like to immediately note that the ARM Limited company is exclusively engaged in the development of kernels and tools for them (debugging tools, compilers, etc.), but not in the production of the processors themselves. Company ARM Limited sells licenses for the production of ARM processors to third parties. Here is a partial list of companies licensed to produce ARM processors today: AMD, Atmel, Altera, Cirrus Logic, Intel, Marvell, NXP, Samsung, LG, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Sony Ericsson, Texas Instruments, nVidia, Freescale... and many others.

Some companies that have received a license to produce ARM processors create their own versions of cores based on ARM architecture. As an example we can name: DEC StrongARM, Freescale i.MX, Intel XScale, NVIDIA Tegra, ST-Ericsson Nomadik, Qualcomm Snapdragon, Texas Instruments OMAP, Samsung Hummingbird, LG H13, Apple A4/A5/A6 and HiSilicon K3.

Today they work on ARM-based processors virtually any electronics: PDA, mobile phones and smartphones, digital players, portable game consoles, calculators, external hard drives and routers. They all contain an ARM core, so we can say that ARM- mobile processors for smartphones and tablets.

ARM processor represents SoC, or "system on a chip". An SoC system, or “system on a chip,” can contain in one chip, in addition to the CPU itself, other parts full-fledged computer. This includes a memory controller, an I/O port controller, a graphics core, and a geopositioning system (GPS). It may also contain a 3G module, as well as much more.

If we consider a separate family of ARM processors, say Cortex-A9 (or any other), we cannot say that all processors of the same family have the same performance or are all equipped with a GPS module. All these parameters strongly depend on the chip manufacturer and what and how he decided to implement in his product.

What is the difference between ARM and X86 processors?? The RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture itself implies a reduced set of instructions. Which accordingly leads to very moderate energy consumption. After all, inside any ARM chip there are much fewer transistors than its counterpart from the x86 line. Don't forget that in an SoC system all peripheral devices are located inside a single chip, which allows the ARM processor to be even more energy efficient. The ARM architecture was originally designed to calculate only integer operations, unlike x86, which can work with floating point calculations or FPU. It is impossible to clearly compare these two architectures. In some ways, ARM will have an advantage. And somewhere it’s the other way around. If you try to answer the question in one phrase: what is the difference between ARM and X86 processors, then the answer will be this: the ARM processor does not know the number of commands that the x86 processor knows. And those that do know look much shorter. This has both its pros and cons. Be that as it may, lately everything suggests that ARM processors are beginning to slowly but surely catch up, and in some ways even surpass conventional x86 processors. Many openly declare that ARM processors will soon replace the x86 platform in the home PC segment. As we already know, in 2013 several world-famous companies completely abandoned the further production of netbooks in favor of tablet PCs. Well, what will actually happen, time will tell.

We will monitor the ARM processors already available on the market.

Everyone who is interested in mobile technologies has heard about ARM architecture. However, for most people this is associated with tablet or smartphone processors. Others correct them, clarifying that this is not the stone itself, but only its architecture. But almost none of them were certainly interested in where this technology actually came from and when.

Meanwhile this technology widespread among numerous modern gadgets, which are becoming more and more every year. In addition, on the path of development of the company, which began developing ARM processors, there is one interesting case, which is not a sin to mention; perhaps it will become a lesson for the future for someone.

ARM architecture for dummies

The abbreviation ARM hides a fairly successful British company ARM Limited in the field of IT technologies. It stands for Advanced RISC Machines and is one of the world's major developers and licensors of the 32-bit RISC processor architecture that powers most portable devices.

But, characteristically, the company itself does not produce microprocessors, but only develops and licenses its technology to other parties. In particular, ARM microcontroller architecture is purchased by the following manufacturers:

  • Atmel.
  • Cirrus Logic.
  • Intel.
  • Apple.
  • nVidia.
  • HiSilicon.
  • Marvell.
  • Samsung.
  • Qualcomm.
  • Sony Ericsson.
  • Texas Instruments.
  • Broadcom.

Some of them are known to a wide audience of consumers of digital gadgets. According to the British corporation ARM, the total number of microprocessors produced using their technology is more than 2.5 billion. There are several series of mobile stones:

  • ARM7 - clock frequency 60-72 MHz, which is relevant for budget mobile phones.
  • ARM9/ARM9E - the frequency is already higher, about 200 MHz. More functional smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) are equipped with such microprocessors.

Cortex and ARM11 are more modern microprocessor families compared to the previous ARM microcontroller architecture, with clock speeds up to 1 GHz and advanced digital signal processing capabilities.

The popular xScale microprocessors from Marvell (until mid-summer 2007, the project was at the disposal of Intel) are actually an extended version of the ARM9 architecture, supplemented by the Wireless MMX instruction set. This decision from Intel was focused on supporting multimedia applications.

ARM technology refers to a 32-bit microprocessor architecture containing a reduced instruction set, which is referred to as RISC. According to calculations, the use of ARM processors is 82% of the total number of RISC processors produced, which indicates a fairly wide coverage area of ​​32-bit systems.

Many electronic devices are equipped with ARM processor architecture, and these are not only PDAs and cell phones, but also portable game consoles, calculators, computer peripherals, network equipment and much more.

A little trip back in time

Let's take an imaginary time machine back a few years and try to figure out where it all began. It's safe to say that ARM is rather a monopolist in its field. And this is confirmed by the fact that the vast majority of smartphones and other electronic digital devices are controlled by microprocessors created using this architecture.

In 1980, Acorn Computers was founded and began creating personal computers. Therefore, ARM was previously introduced as Acorn RISC Machines.

A year later, a home version of the BBC Micro PC with the very first ARM processor architecture was presented to consumers. It was a success, however, the chip could not cope with graphics tasks, and other options in the form of Motorola 68000 and National Semiconductor 32016 processors were also not suitable for this.

Then the company management thought about creating its own microprocessor. The engineers were interested in a new processor architecture invented by graduates of a local university. It just used the reduced instruction set, or RISC. And after the appearance of the first computer, which was controlled by the Acorn Risc Machine processor, success came quite quickly - in 1990, an agreement was concluded between the British brand and Apple. This marked the beginning of the development of a new chipset, which, in turn, led to the formation of an entire development team referred to as Advanced RISC Machines, or ARM.

Starting in 1998, the company changed its name to ARM Limited. And now specialists are no longer involved in the production and implementation of ARM architecture. What did it give? This did not in any way affect the development of the company, although the main and only direction of the company was the development of technologies, as well as the sale of licenses to third-party companies so that they could use the processor architecture. At the same time, some companies acquire the rights to ready-made cores, while others equip processors with their own cores under an acquired license.

According to some data, the company’s earnings on each such solution is 0.067 $. But this information is average and outdated. The number of cores in chipsets grows every year, and accordingly, the cost of modern processors exceeds older models.

Scope of application

It was the development of mobile devices that brought enormous popularity to ARM Limited. And when the production of smartphones and other portable electronic devices became widespread, energy-efficient processors immediately found use. I wonder if there is Linux on arm architecture?

The culmination of ARM's development occurred in 2007, when its partnership with the Apple brand was renewed. After that, the first iPhone based on an ARM processor was presented to consumers. Since that time, such a processor architecture has become an invariable component of almost any manufactured smartphone that can only be found on the modern mobile market.

We can say that almost every modern electronic device that needs to be controlled by a processor is somehow equipped with ARM chips. And the fact that such a processor architecture supports many operating systems, be it Linux, Android, iOS, and Windows, is an undeniable advantage. Among them is Windows embedded CE 6.0 Core; the arm architecture is also supported by it. This platform is designed for handheld computers, mobile phones and embedded systems.

Distinctive features of x86 and ARM

Many users who have heard a lot about ARM and x86 slightly confuse these two architectures with each other. Meanwhile, they have certain differences. There are two main types of architectures:

  • CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing).
  • Computing).

CISC includes x86 processors (Intel or AMD), RISC, as you can already understand, includes the ARM family. The x86 and arm architectures have their admirers. Thanks to the efforts of ARM specialists, who emphasized energy efficiency and the use of a simple set of instructions, processors benefited greatly from this - the mobile market began to develop rapidly, and many smartphones almost equaled the capabilities of computers.

In turn, Intel has always been famous for producing processors with high performance and throughput for desktops, laptops, servers and even supercomputers.

These two families won the hearts of users in their own way. But what is their difference? There are several distinctive features or even features; let’s look at the most important of them.

Processing power

Let's start analyzing the differences between ARM and x86 architectures with this parameter. The specialty of RISC professors is to use as little instruction as possible. Moreover, they should be as simple as possible, which gives them advantages not only for engineers, but also for software developers.

The philosophy here is simple - if the instructions are simple, then for the required circuit You don't need too many transistors. As a result, additional space is freed up for something or the chip sizes become smaller. For this reason, ARM microprocessors began to integrate peripheral devices such as graphics processors. A case in point is the Raspberry Pi computer, which has a minimal number of components.

However, simple instructions come at a cost. To perform certain tasks, additional instructions are required, which usually leads to an increase in memory consumption and time to complete tasks.

Unlike the arm processor architecture, the instructions of CISC chips, such as solutions from Intel, can perform complex tasks with great flexibility. In other words, RISC-based machines perform operations between registers, and usually require the program to load variables into the register before performing the operation. CISC processors are capable of performing operations in several ways:

  • between registers;
  • between register and memory location;
  • between memory cells.

But that's only part distinctive features, let's move on to analyzing other signs.

Power consumption

Depending on the type of device, power consumption may have varying degrees of significance. For a system that is connected to a constant power source (electric grid), there is simply no limit on energy consumption. However, mobile phones and other electronic gadgets are completely dependent on power management.

Another difference between the arm and x86 architectures is that the former has a power consumption of less than 5 W, including many related packages: GPUs, peripherals, memory. This low power is due to the smaller number of transistors in combination with the relatively low speeds(if you draw a parallel with processors for desktop PCs). At the same time, this has an impact on productivity - complex operations take longer to complete.

Intel cores have a more complex structure and, as a result, their energy consumption is significantly higher. For example, a high-performance Intel I-7 processor consumes about 130 W of energy, mobile versions - 6-30 W.

Software

It is quite difficult to make a comparison on this parameter, since both brands are very popular in their circles. Devices that are based on arm-architecture processors work perfectly with mobile operating systems (Android, etc.).

Machines running Intel processors are capable of running platforms like Windows and Linux. In addition, both families of microprocessors are friendly with applications written in Java.

Analyzing the differences in architectures, one thing can be said for sure - ARM processors mainly manage the power consumption of mobile devices. The main goal of desktop solutions is to provide high performance.

New achievements

The ARM company, due to its competent policy, has completely taken control of the mobile market. But in the future she is not going to stop there. Not long ago, a new development of cores was presented: Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57, which received one important update - support for 64-bit computing.

The A53 core is a direct successor of the ARM Cortex-A8, which, although its performance was not very high, had minimal power consumption. As experts note, the architecture's power consumption is reduced by 4 times, and in terms of performance it will not be inferior to the Cortex-A9 core. And this despite the fact that the core area of ​​the A53 is 40% smaller than that of the A9.

The A57 core will replace Cortex-A9 and Cortex-A15. At the same time, ARM engineers claim a phenomenal performance increase - three times higher than that of the A15 core. In other words, the A57 microprocessor will be 6 times faster than the Cortex-A9, and its energy efficiency will be 5 times better than the A15.

To summarize, the cortex series, namely the more advanced a53, differs from its predecessors in higher performance against the backdrop of equally high energy efficiency. Even Cortex-A7 processors, which are installed on most smartphones, cannot compete!

But what is more valuable is that the arm cortex a53 architecture is the component that will allow you to avoid problems associated with lack of memory. In addition, the device will drain the battery more slowly. Thanks to the new product, these problems will now be a thing of the past.

Graphic solutions

In addition to developing processors, ARM is working on the implementation of Mali series graphics accelerators. And the very first of them is Mali 55. The LG Renoir phone was equipped with this accelerator. And yes, this is the most ordinary mobile phone. Only in it the GPU was not responsible for games, but only rendered the interface, because judging by modern standards, the graphics processor has primitive capabilities.

But progress inexorably flies forward and therefore, in order to keep up with the times, ARM also has more advanced models that are relevant for mid-price smartphones. It's about about the common GPU Mali-400 MP and Mali-450 MP. Although they have low performance and a limited set of APIs, this does not prevent them from finding application in modern mobile models. A striking example is the Zopo ZP998 phone, in which the eight-core MTK6592 chip is paired with a Mali-450 MP4 graphics accelerator.

Competitiveness

Currently, no one is opposing ARM yet, and this is mainly due to the fact that the right decision was made at the time. But once upon a time, at the beginning of its journey, a team of developers worked on creating processors for PCs and even made an attempt to compete with such a giant as Intel. But even after the direction of activity was changed, the company had a hard time.

And when the world-famous computer brand Microsoft entered into an agreement with Intel, other manufacturers simply had no chance - the Windows operating system refused to work with ARM processors. How can one not resist using gcam emulators for arm architecture?! What about Intel, then observing the wave of success of ARM Limited, it also tried to create a processor that would be a worthy competitor. For this purpose, the Intel Atom chip was made available to the general public. But it took a much longer period of time than ARM Limited. And the chip went into production only in 2011, but precious time was already lost.

Essentially, Intel Atom is a CISC processor with x86 architecture. Specialists managed to achieve lower power consumption than in ARM solutions. However, all the software that is released under mobile platforms, poorly adapted to x86 architecture.

Ultimately, the company admitted the complete craze decision taken and subsequently abandoned the production of processors for mobile devices. The only major manufacturer of Intel Atom chips is ASUS. At the same time, these processors have not sunk into oblivion; netbooks, nettops and other portable devices are equipped with them en masse.

However, there is a possibility that the situation will change and everyone's favorite Windows operating system will support ARM microprocessors. In addition, steps are being taken in this direction, maybe something like gcam emulators on ARM architecture for mobile solutions will really appear?! Who knows, time will tell and everything will be put in its place.

In the history of development of the ARM company there is one interesting point(at the very beginning of the article this is what was meant). Once upon a time, ARM Limited was based on Apple and it is likely that all ARM technology would have belonged to it. However, fate decreed otherwise - in 1998, Apple was in a crisis, and management was forced to sell its stake. Currently, it is on a par with other manufacturers and remains for its own iPhone devices and iPad to purchase technology from ARM Limited. Who could have known how things could turn out?!

Modern ARM processors are capable of performing more complex operations. And in the near future, the company's management aims to enter the server market, which it is undoubtedly interested in. Moreover, in our modern times, when the era of development of the Internet of Things (IoT), including “smart” household appliances, is approaching, we can predict an even greater demand for chips with ARM architecture.

So ARM Limited has a far from bleak future ahead of it! And it is unlikely that in the near future there will be anyone who can displace this, without a doubt, mobile giant in the development of processors for smartphones and other similar electronic devices.

As a conclusion

ARM processors quickly took over the mobile device market, all thanks to low power consumption and, albeit not very high, but still good performance. Currently, the state of affairs at ARM can only be envied. Many manufacturers use its technologies, which puts Advanced RISC Machines on par with such giants in the field of processor development as Intel and AMD. And this despite the fact that the company does not have its own production.

For some time, the competitor of the mobile brand was the MIPS company with the architecture of the same name. But at present, there is still only one serious competitor in the person of Intel Corporation, although its management does not believe that the arm architecture can pose a threat to its market share.

Also, according to experts from Intel, ARM processors are not capable of running desktop versions of operating systems. However, such a statement sounds a little illogical, because owners of ultramobile PCs do not use “heavy” software. In most cases, you need access to the Internet, editing documents, listening to media files (music, movies) and other simple tasks. And ARM solutions cope well with such operations.

Processor (CPU) is the main component of any computer. mobile phone or other smart gadget. It is the processor that performs the majority of all calculations and tasks that are required to run the device, operating system, and applications. Therefore, its performance directly affects the performance of the entire device. If the processor is not fast enough, the user will experience freezes, slow application launches, and lags in the interface.

Considering all of the above, it is not surprising that many users are interested in what processor is installed on their device. In this manual, we will look at several ways that will allow you to obtain this information and find out which processor is used on your Android phone.

In order to find out which processor is installed on Android phone, and also see its other characteristics, you need to install a special application. Unfortunately, without this it will not be possible to obtain the necessary information, since standard settings The Android operating system simply does not provide such an option. One of the simplest and convenient applications To view the characteristics, use the CPU-Z utility.

CPU-Z is the Android version of the popular processor identification program. The CPU-Z application allows you to find out which processor is installed on your Android phone, and also get detailed information about its characteristics. You can also get other information about your phone in this application.

The CPU-Z interface consists of several tabs:

  • SOC– information about the processor installed on this Android device. Here you can find information about the processor model, architecture (x86 or ARM), number of cores, clock speed, and graphics accelerator model.
  • System– name of the Android device, manufacturer and version of Android. Some other technical characteristics of the Android device are also listed here. For example, screen resolution, pixel density, amount of RAM and permanent memory.
  • Battery– information about the battery. The charge level, voltage and temperature of the battery are indicated here.
  • Sensors– data from sensors installed on the Android device. Updated in real time.

In order to find out which processor is on your Android phone, you need to install and run the CPU-Z application. After this, the CPU-Z application will open in front of you on the “SOC” tab. Here at the very top of the screen the name of the processor model will be indicated. Also here you can find the following information about the processor:

  • Number of cores.
  • big.LITTLE support.
  • Architecture.
  • Revision.
  • Technological process (technical process).
  • Clock frequencies.
  • Current clock speed for each core.
  • Manufacturer of graphics accelerator.
  • Graphics accelerator model.

How to view the processor model in AIDA64

Another phone specs app worth considering is AIDA64. Like the previous application, AIDA64 first appeared on PC and only then a version for Android was released.

The AIDA64 application collects a huge amount of information about the hardware and software of an Android device and displays it to the user in a convenient form. In AIDA64 you can see the technical characteristics of the processor, screen, battery, wireless modules, RAM, graphics accelerator and sensors. The application also provides a lot of information about installed applications and operating system settings. At the same time, AIDA64 works not only on phones, but also on other Android devices, For example, smart watch or TVs.

The AIDA64 interface for Android consists of the following sections:

  • System – general information about the phone. Device name, manufacturer, amount of RAM and internal memory.
  • CPU– information about the installed processor and its technical characteristics Oh.
  • Display– information about the device screen. Screen size, resolution, pixel density, refresh rate.
  • Net – networking opportunities devices. Mobile operator information and wireless networks Wi-Fi.
  • Battery– information about battery. Battery type, charge level, temperature, supply voltage, capacity, discharge rate.
  • Android– operating system parameters. Android version, API level, technical parameters.
  • Devices– data about connected devices. Here you can find the characteristics of the camera, fingerprint scanner and other devices.
  • Temperature– current temperature values ​​from sensors.
  • Sensors– a complete list of all sensors available on the phone. Here you can view data that comes from the proximity sensor, gyroscope, barometer, etc.
  • Applications– list of all installed programs.
  • Codecs– a list of all installed codecs (programs for working with sound and video).
  • Folders– a list of system folders of the Android operating system.
  • System files– a list of system files of the Android operating system.

In order to find out what processor is installed on your phone, you need to open the “CPU” section. Here at the very top of the screen the name of the processor model will be indicated. Also here you can find the following information about the processor:

  • Processor architecture.
  • Process.
  • Set of instructions.
  • Revision.
  • Number of cores.
  • Frequency range.
  • Current frequencies for each core.

Search for technical specifications on the Internet

As you can see, it is not difficult to obtain information about the processor used. All you need to do is install one of the proposed applications and study the information that is provided there. If your phone does not work or you cannot install specified programs, then in this case you need to look for information about the CPU on the Internet. To do this, just enter the name of the mobile phone into the search engine and study the search results.

You can also turn to sites that specialize in collecting characteristics about mobile phones. For example, you can go to, enter the name of the phone in the search and click on the link found.

After this, you will see a page with detailed characteristics your mobile phone. Here you need to find the line “Chipset”. It will indicate the name of the processor that is installed on your Android device.

If gsmarena.com does not have the gadget you need, then try searching on. There is also a large database of mobile phones with detailed characteristics of each device.

The first ARM chips appeared three decades ago thanks to the efforts of the British company Acorn Computers (now ARM Limited), but for a long time were in the shadow of their more famous brothers - x86 processors. Everything turned upside down with the transition of the IT industry to the post-computer era, when mobile gadgets, rather than PCs, began to rule the roost.

Perhaps it’s worth starting with the fact that the x86 processor architecture, which is currently used by Intel and AMD, uses the CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) command set, although not in pure form. Thus, a large number of teams that are complex in their structure, which for a long time was distinctive feature CISC are first decoded into simple ones, and only then processed. It’s clear that this entire chain of actions takes a lot of energy.

An energy-efficient alternative is ARM architecture chips with the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) instruction set. Its advantage is an initially small set of simple commands that are processed with minimal effort. As a result, now on the market consumer electronics Two processor architectures - x86 and ARM - coexist peacefully (actually, not very peacefully), each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages.


The x86 architecture is positioned as more universal in terms of the tasks it can handle, including even resource-intensive ones such as photo, music and video editing, as well as data encryption and compression. In turn, the ARM architecture “exits” due to extremely low power consumption and, in general, sufficient performance for the most important purposes today: drawing web pages and playing media content.


Business model of ARM Limited

Currently, ARM Limited is only engaged in the development of reference processor architectures and their licensing. Creation specific models chips and their subsequent mass production is already the job of ARM licensees, of which there are a great many. Among them there are companies known only in narrow circles like STMicroelectronics, HiSilicon and Atmel, as well as IT giants whose names are well-known - Samsung, NVIDIA and Qualcomm. The full list of licensee companies can be found on the corresponding page of the official website of ARM Limited.


Such a large number of licensees is primarily due to the abundance of applications for ARM processors, and mobile gadgets are just the tip of the iceberg. Inexpensive and energy efficient chips are used in embedded systems, network equipment And measuring instruments. Payment terminals, external 3G modems and sports heart rate monitors - all these devices are based on ARM processor architecture.


According to analysts, ARM Limited itself earns $0.067 in royalties on each chip produced. But this is a very average amount, because at cost the newest multi-core processors significantly superior to single-core chips of legacy architecture.

Single-chip system

From a technical point of view, calling ARM architecture chips processors is not entirely correct, because in addition to one or more computing cores, they include a number of related components. More appropriate in this case are the terms single-chip system and system-on-a-chip (from the English system on a chip).

Thus, the latest single-chip systems for smartphones and tablet computers include a RAM controller, graphics accelerator, video decoder, audio codec and optional modules wireless communication. Highly specialized chips may include additional controllers to interface with peripheral devices such as sensors.


Individual components of a single-chip system can be developed either directly by ARM Limited or by third-party companies. A striking example of this are graphics accelerators, which in addition to ARM Limited (Mali graphics) are being developed by Qualcomm (Adreno graphics) and NVIDIA (GeForce ULP graphics).

We should not forget about the company Imagination Technologies, which does not do anything other than design PowerVR graphics accelerators. But it owns almost half of the global mobile graphics market: Apple and Amazon gadgets, Samsung tablets Galaxy Tab 2 and also inexpensive smartphones based on MTK processors.

Outdated generations of chips

Morally outdated, but still widely used processor architectures are ARM9 and ARM11, which belong to the ARMv5 and ARMv6 families, respectively.

ARM9. ARM9 chips can reach clock speeds of 400 MHz and are most likely what is found inside your wireless router and older but still reliable mobile phones like the Sony Ericsson K750i and Nokia 6300. Critical to ARM9 chips is the Jazelle instruction set, which allows comfortable working with Java applications (Opera Mini, Jimm, Foliant, etc.).

ARM11. ARM11 processors boast an expanded set of instructions compared to ARM9 and a much higher clock frequency (up to 1 GHz), although their power is also not enough for modern tasks. However, due to low power consumption and, just as importantly, cost, ARM11 chips are still used in entry-level smartphones: Samsung Galaxy Pocket and Nokia 500.

Modern generations of chips

All more or less new ARM architecture chips belong to the ARMv7 family, the flagship representatives of which have already reached eight cores and a clock speed of over 2 GHz. The processor cores developed directly by ARM Limited belong to the Cortex line and most manufacturers of single-chip systems use them without significant changes. Only Qualcomm and Apple have created their own modifications based on ARMv7 - the first called their creations Scorpion and Krait, and the second - Swift.


ARM Cortex-A8. Historically, the first processor core of the ARMv7 family was the Cortex-A8, which formed the basis for such famous SoCs of its time as the Apple A4 (iPhone 4 and iPad) and Samsung Hummingbird (Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab). It demonstrates approximately twice the performance compared to the predecessor ARM11. In addition, the Cortex-A8 core received a NEON coprocessor for processing high-resolution video and support Adobe plugin Flash.

True, all this negatively affected the power consumption of Cortex-A8, which is significantly higher than that of ARM11. Despite the fact that ARM Cortex-A8 chips are still used in budget tablets (Allwiner Boxchip A10 single-chip system), their days on the market are apparently numbered.

ARM Cortex-A9. Following Cortex-A8, ARM Limited introduced a new generation of chips - Cortex-A9, which is now the most common and occupies an average price niche. The performance of Cortex-A9 cores has increased approximately threefold compared to Cortex-A8, and it is also possible to combine two or even four of them on one chip.

The NEON coprocessor has become optional: NVIDIA company Tegra 2 abolished it in its single-chip system, deciding to free up more space for the graphics accelerator. True, nothing good came of this, because most video player applications still relied on the time-tested NEON.


It was during the “reign” of Cortex-A9 that the first implementations of the big.LITTLE concept proposed by ARM Limited appeared, according to which single-chip systems should have both powerful and weak, but energy-efficient processor cores. The first implementation of the big.LITTLE concept was the NVIDIA Tegra 3 system-on-chip with four Cortex-A9 cores (up to 1.7 GHz) and a fifth energy-efficient companion core (500 MHz) for performing simple background tasks.

ARM Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A7. When designing the Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A7 processor cores, ARM Limited pursued the same goal - to achieve a compromise between the minimal power consumption of ARM11 and the acceptable performance of Cortex-A8. They haven’t forgotten about the possibility of combining two or four cores - multi-core Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A7 chips are gradually appearing on sale (Qualcomm MSM8625 and MTK 6589).


ARM Cortex-A15. The Cortex-A15 processor cores became a logical continuation of the Cortex-A9 - as a result, for the first time in history, ARM architecture chips managed to roughly compare in performance with Intel Atom, and this is already a great success. It’s not for nothing that Canonical system requirements to the Ubuntu Touch OS version with full multitasking indicated dual core processor ARM Cortex-A15 or similar Intel Atom.


Very soon, numerous gadgets based on NVIDIA Tegra 4 with four ARM Cortex-A15 cores and a fifth companion Cortex-A7 core will go on sale. Following NVIDIA, the big.LITTLE concept was picked up by Samsung: the “heart” of the Galaxy S4 smartphone was the Exynos 5 Octa chip with four Cortex-A15 cores and the same number of energy-efficient Cortex-A7 cores.


Future prospects

Mobile gadgets based on Cortex-A15 chips have not yet appeared on sale, but the main trends in the further development of ARM architecture are already known. ARM Limited has already officially introduced the next family of ARMv8 processors, the representatives of which will necessarily be 64-bit. The Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 cores open a new era of RISC processors: the first is energy efficient, the second is high-performance, but both are capable of working with large amounts of RAM.

Manufacturers of consumer electronics have not yet become particularly interested in the ARMv8 processor family, but new licensees are on the horizon planning to bring ARM chips to the server market: AMD and Calxeda. The idea is innovative, but it has the right to life: the same NVIDIA Tesla graphics accelerators, consisting of a large number of simple cores, have proven their effectiveness in practice as server solutions.

Nowadays, there are two most popular processor architectures. This is x86, which was developed back in the 80s and is used in personal computers and ARM - more modern, which allows you to make processors smaller and more economical. It is used in most mobile devices or tablets.

Both architectures have their pros and cons, as well as areas of application, but there are also common features. Many experts say that ARM is the future, but it still has some disadvantages that x86 does not have. In our article today we will look at how the arm architecture differs from x86. Let's look at the fundamental differences between ARM and x86, and also try to determine which is better.

The processor is the main component of any computing device, be it a smartphone or a computer. Its performance determines how fast the device will work and how long it can run on battery power. Simply put, a processor architecture is a set of instructions that can be used to compose programs and are implemented in hardware using certain combinations of processor transistors. They allow programs to interact with hardware and determine how data will be transferred to and read from memory.

At the moment, there are two types of architectures: CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) and RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing). The first assumes that the processor will implement instructions for all occasions, the second, RISC, sets developers the task of creating a processor with a set of the minimum instructions required for operation. RISC instructions are smaller and simpler.

x86 architecture

The x86 processor architecture was developed in 1978 and first appeared in Intel processors and is of the CISC type. Its name is taken from the model of the first processor with this architecture - Intel 8086. Over time, for lack of best alternative Other processor manufacturers, such as AMD, also began to support this architecture. It is now the standard for desktop computers, laptops, netbooks, servers and other similar devices. But sometimes x86 processors are used in tablets, this is a fairly common practice.

The first Intel 8086 processor had a 16-bit capacity, then in 2000 a 32-bit architecture processor was released, and even later a 64-bit architecture appeared. We discussed this in detail in a separate article. During this time, the architecture has developed very much; new sets of instructions and extensions have been added, which can greatly increase the performance of the processor.

x86 has several significant disadvantages. Firstly, this is the complexity of the commands, their confusion, which arose due to the long history of development. Secondly, such processors consume too much power and generate a lot of heat because of this. x86 engineers initially took the path of obtaining maximum performance, and speed requires resources. Before we look at the differences between the arm x86, let's talk about the ARM architecture.

ARM architecture

This architecture was introduced a little later behind x86 - in 1985. It was developed by the famous British company Acorn, then this architecture was called Arcon Risk Machine and belonged to the RISC type, but then its improved version Advanted RISC Machine was released, which is now known as ARM.

When developing this architecture, the engineers set themselves the goal of eliminating all the shortcomings of x86 and creating a completely new and most efficient architecture. ARM chips have minimal power consumption and low price, but had poor performance compared to x86, so they initially did not gain much popularity on personal computers.

Unlike x86, developers initially tried to get minimum costs on resources, they have fewer processor instructions, fewer transistors, but also, accordingly, less all sorts of additional features. But the performance of ARM processors has been improving in recent years. Considering this, and low power consumption, they began to be very widely used in mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.

Differences between ARM and x86

And now that we have looked at the history of the development of these architectures and their fundamental differences, let's make a detailed comparison of ARM and x86 based on their various characteristics in order to determine which is better and more accurately understand what their differences are.

Production

Production x86 vs arm is different. Only two companies produce x86 processors: Intel and AMD. Initially, this was one company, but that's a completely different story. Only these companies have the right to produce such processors, which means that only they will control the direction of infrastructure development.

ARM works very differently. The company that develops ARM doesn't release anything. They simply issue permission to develop processors of this architecture, and manufacturers can do whatever they need, for example, produce specific chips with the modules they need.

Number of instructions

These are the main differences between arm and x86 architecture. x86 processors developed rapidly as more powerful and productive. The developers have added a large number of processor instructions, and there is not just a basic set, but quite a lot of commands that could be done without. Initially, this was done to reduce the amount of memory occupied by programs on disk. Many options for protection and virtualization, optimization and much more have also been developed. All this requires additional transistors and energy.

ARM is simpler. There are much fewer processor instructions here, only those that the operating system needs and are actually used. If we compare x86, then only 30% of all possible instructions are used there. They are easier to learn if you decide to write programs by hand, and they also require fewer transistors to implement.

Energy consumption

Another conclusion emerges from the previous paragraph. The more transistors on the board, the larger its area and energy consumption, and the reverse is also true.

x86 processors consume much more power than ARM. But power consumption is also affected by the size of the transistor itself. For example, an Intel i7 processor consumes 47 Watts, and any ARM smartphone processor consumes no more than 3 Watts. Previously, boards with a single element size of 80 nm were produced, then Intel achieved a reduction to 22 nm, and this year scientists were able to create a board with an element size of 1 nanometer. This will greatly reduce power consumption without losing performance.

In recent years, the energy consumption of x86 processors has decreased greatly, for example, new Intel processors Haswell can last longer on battery. Now the difference between arm vs x86 is gradually disappearing.

Heat dissipation

The number of transistors affects another parameter - heat generation. Modern devices cannot convert all the energy into effective action; part of it is dissipated in the form of heat. The efficiency of the boards is the same, which means that the fewer transistors and the smaller their size, the less heat the processor will generate. Here the question no longer arises whether ARM or x86 will generate less heat.

Processor performance

ARM was not originally designed for maximum performance, this is where x86 excels. This is partly due to the smaller number of transistors. But recently, the performance of ARM processors has been increasing, and they can already be fully used in laptops or servers.

Conclusions

In this article we looked at how ARM differs from x86. The differences are quite serious. But lately the line between both architectures has been blurred. ARM processors are becoming more productive and faster, and x86 processors, thanks to the reduction in the size of the board's structural element, begin to consume less power and generate less heat. You can already find ARM processors on servers and laptops, and x86 on tablets and smartphones.

What do you think about these x86 and ARM? What technology is the future in your opinion? Write in the comments! By the way, .

To conclude the video about the development of the ARM architecture:

Heading: Operating Systems
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