ARM Cortex-A7

2011 computer microprocessor core

1–8

HistoryPredecessor(s)ARM Cortex-A5Successor(s)ARM Cortex-A53

The ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore is a 32-bit microprocessor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture announced in 2011.^[1]

Overview

The Cortex-A7 is used to power the popular Raspberry Pi 2 micro-computer.

It has two target applications; firstly as a smaller, simpler, and more power-efficient successor to the Cortex-A8. The other use is in the big.LITTLE architecture, combining one or more A7 cores with one or more Cortex-A15 cores into a heterogeneous system.^[2] To do this it is fully feature-compatible with the A15.

Key features of the Cortex-A7 core are:

Partial dual-issue, in-order microarchitecture with an 8-stage pipeline^[3]
NEON SIMD instruction set extension
VFPv4 Floating Point Unit
Thumb-2 instruction set encoding
Jazelle RCT
Hardware virtualization
Large Page Address Extensions (LPAE)
Integrated level 2 Cache (0–1 MB)
1.9 DMIPS / MHz^[3]
Typical clock speed 1.5 GHz^[3]

Chips

Several system-on-chips (SoC) have implemented the Cortex-A7 core, including:

Allwinner A20 (dual-core A7 + Mali-400 MP2 GPU)^[4]
Allwinner A31 (quad-core A7 + PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU)^[5]
Allwinner A83T (octa-core A7 + PowerVR SGX544 GPU)^[6]
Allwinner H3(quad-core A7 + Mali-400 MP2 GPU)^[7]
Broadcom BCM23550 quad-core HSPA+ Multimedia Processor^[8]
Broadcom BCM2836 (quad-core A7 + VideoCore IV GPU), designed specifically for Raspberry Pi 2^[9]
NXP Semiconductor (Formerly Freescale) QorIQ Layerscape LS1 (dual-core A7)
Freescale i.MX 6 UltraLite
HiSilicon K3V3, big.LITTLE architecture with dual-core Cortex-A7 and dual-core Cortex-A15. Use ARM Mali-T658 GPU.
Marvell PXA1088 (quad-core A7 + Vivante GC1000)^[10]
Mediatek MT6570 (dual-core A7 + ARM Mali-400MP1 GPU)
Mediatek MT6572 (dual-core A7 + ARM Mali-400MP1 GPU)
Mediatek MT6580 (quad-core A7 + ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU)
Mediatek MT6582 (quad-core A7 + ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU)
Mediatek MT6589 (quad-core A7 + Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX544 GPU)
Mediatek MT6592 (octa-core A7 + ARM Mali-450MP4 GPU)
Mstar MSB2531A ARM Cortex A7 32bit 800MHZ
Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 and Snapdragon 400 MSM8212 and MSM8612, MSM8226, MSM8626 and MSM8926 (quad core A7 + Adreno 305 GPU)
Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (5410), big.LITTLE architecture with quad-core Cortex-A7 and quad-core Cortex-A15. Use Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX544MP3 GPU.
Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (5420), big.LITTLE architecture with quad-core Cortex-A7 and quad-core Cortex-A15. Use ARM Mali-T628MP6 GPU.
STMicroelectronics STM32MP13x (single-core A7)
STMicroelectronics STM32MP15x (dual-core A7 + M4 + Vivante GPU)
ASPEED AST2600 BMC (dual-core A7 + M4)

References

^ ^a ^b Ryan Whitwam (2011-10-21), ARM Cortex-A7 offers a microdot-sized glimpse into the future of mobile processors, ExtremeTech
^ "big.LITTLE Processing". ARM Holdings. Archived from the original on 2012-10-22. Retrieved 2012-10-17.
^ ^a ^b ^c Anand Lal Shimpi (2011-10-19). "ARM's Cortex A7: Bringing Cheaper Dual-Core & More Power Efficient High-End Devices". AnandTech. Retrieved 2012-10-17.
^ "AllWinner Publishes A31 and A20 Processors Details". CNXSoft. December 9, 2012. Archived from the original on December 12, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-09.
^ "A31". Allwinner Technology. Archived from the original on 2016-02-21. Retrieved 2016-02-18.
^ "A83T". Allwinner Technology. Archived from the original on 2016-02-10. Retrieved 2016-02-18.
^ "H3". Allwinner. Retrieved 2016-11-04.
^ "BCM23550". Broadcom. Archived from the original on 2013-10-29.
^ Upton, Eben. "Raspberry Pi 2 on sale now at $35". Raspberry Pi Foundation. Archived from the original on 11 April 2015. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
^ "PXA1088". Marvell Technology Group. Archived from the original on 2013-05-12.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to ARM Cortex-A7.

ARM Holdings

Official website
Cortex-A7 Technical Reference Manuals

Other

Cortex-A7 instruction cycle timings

Application ARM-based chips

Application
processors
(32-bit)

ARMv7-A

Cortex-A5	Actions ATM702x Amlogic M805/S805, T82x Atmel SAMA5D3 InfoTM iMAPx820, iMAPx15 Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Play, 200 RDA RDA8810PL Telechips TCC892x
Cortex-A7	Allwinner A2x, A3x, A83T, H3, H8 NXP i.MX7, QorIQ LS10xx, NXP i.MX6UL Broadcom VideoCore BCM2836, BCM23550 Leadcore LC1813, LC1860/C, LC1913, LC1960 Marvell Armada PXA1920, 1500 mini plus MediaTek MT65xx Qualcomm Snapdragon 200, 400
Cortex-A8	Allwinner A1x Apple A4 Freescale i.MX5 Rockchip RK291x Samsung Exynos 3110(S5PC110), S5PV210 Texas Instruments OMAP 3 Texas Instruments Sitara AM3xxx Texas Instruments DM38x ZiiLABS ZMS-08
Cortex-A9	Actions ATM702x, ATM703x Altera Cyclone V, Arria V/10 Amlogic AML8726, MX, M6x, M801, M802/S802, S812, T86x Apple A5, A5X Broadcom VideoCore BCM21xxx, BCM28xxx Freescale i.MX6 HiSilicon K3V2, 910's InfoTM iMAPx912 Leadcore LC1810, LC1811 Marvell Armada 1500 mini MediaTek MT65xx Nvidia Tegra, 2, 3, 4i Nufront NuSmart 2816M, NS115, NS115M Renesas EMMA EV2, R-Car H1, RZ/A Rockchip RK292x, RK30xx, RK31xx Samsung Exynos 4 421x, 441x ST-Ericsson NovaThor Telechips TCC8803 Texas Instruments OMAP 4 Texas Instruments Sitara AM4xxx VIA WonderMedia WM88x0, 89x0 Xilinx Zynq-7000 ZiiLABS ZMS-20, ZMS-40
Cortex-A15	Allwinner A80 HiSilicon K3V3 MediaTek MT8135/V Nvidia Tegra 4, K1 Renesas R-Car H2 Samsung Exynos 5 52xx, 54xx Texas Instruments OMAP 5, DRA7xx, AM57xx Texas Instruments Sitara AM5xxx
Cortex-A17	MediaTek MT6595, MT5595 MStar 6A928 Rockchip RK3288
Others	Cortex-A12
ARMv7-A compatible	Apple A6, A6X, S1, S1P, S2, S3 Broadcom Brahma-B15 Marvell P4J Qualcomm Snapdragon S1, S2, S3, S4 Plus, S4 Pro, 600, 800 (Scorpion, Krait)

ARMv8-A

Others	Cortex-A32

Application
processors
(64-bit)

ARMv8-A

Cortex-A35	NXP i.MX8X MediaTek MT6799, MT8516 Rockchip RK3308
Cortex-A53	Actions GT7, S900, V700 Allwinner A64, H5, H64, R18 Altera Stratix 10 Amlogic S9 Family, T96x Broadcom BCM2837 EZchip TILE-Mx100 HiSilicon Kirin 620, 650, 655, 658, 659, 930, 935 Marvell Armada PXA1928, Mobile PXA1908/PXA1936 MediaTek MT673x, MT675x, MT6761V, MT6762/V, MT6763T, MT6765/G/H, MT6795, MT8161, MT8163, MT8165, MT8732, MT8735, MT8752 NXP ARM S32, QorIQ LS1088, LS1043, i.MX8M Qualcomm Snapdragon 215, 410, 412, 415, 425, 427, 430, 435, 429, 439, 450, 610, 615, 616, 617, 625, 626, 630 Renesas RZ/V2M Rockchip RK3328, RK3368 Samsung Exynos 7570, 7578, 7580, 7870, 7880 Texas Instruments Sitara AM6xxx UNISOC SC9820E, SC9832E, SC9860/GV Xilinx ZynqMP
Cortex-A57	AMD Opteron A1100-series NXP QorIQ LS20xx Nvidia Tegra X1 and Tegra X2 Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 and 810 Samsung Exynos 7 5433, 7420 HiSilicon Kirin Hi1610 and Hi1612
Cortex-A72	AWS Graviton Broadcom BCM2711 HiSilicon Kirin 950, 955, Kunpeng 916 MediaTek MT6797/D/T/X, MT8173, MT8176, MT8693 MStar 6A938 Qualcomm Snapdragon 650, 652, 653 Rockchip RK3399 NXP QorIQ LS2088, QorIQ LS1046A, QorIQ LX2160A, QorIQ LS1028A, i.MX8
Cortex-A73	Qualcomm Snapdragon 460, 636, 660, 632, 662, 665, 680, 685, 835 Samsung Exynos 7872, 7884, 7885, 7904, 9609, 9610, 9611 HiSilicon Kirin 710, 960, 970 MediaTek MT6771/V, MT6799, MT8183, MT8788 Amlogic S922X
Others	Cortex-A34
ARMv8-A compatible	Ampere eMAG Apple A7, A8, A8X, A9, A9X, A10, A10X Applied Micro X-Gene Cavium ThunderX Nvidia Tegra K1 (Denver), Tegra X2 (Denver2) Qualcomm Kryo, Falkor Samsung Exynos M1 (Mongoose), M2 (Mongoose)

ARMv8.1-A

ARMv8.1-A compatible	Cavium ThunderX2

ARMv8.2-A

Cortex-A55	Samsung Exynos 850 UNISOC SC9863/A, T603
Cortex-A75	Qualcomm Snapdragon 670, 710, 712, 845, 850 Samsung Exynos 9820, 9825 MediaTek MT6769H/T/V/Z, MT6768, MT6779V UNISOC T310, T606, T610, T616, T618, T619, T700, T710, T740
Cortex-A76	Google Tensor HiSilicon Kirin 810, 820, 980, 985, 990 Qualcomm Snapdragon 480(+), 675, 678, 720G, 730(G), 732G, 765(G), 768G, 855(+) and 860, 7c, 7c Gen 2, 8c, 8cx and 8cx Gen 2 Microsoft SQ1 and SQ2 MediaTek MT6781, MT6785V, MT6789, MT6833V/P, MT6853V/T, MT6873, MT6875, Dimensity 6020, 6080, 6100+, 6300, MT8192 Samsung Exynos 990 UNISOC T760, T770, T820
Cortex-A77	MediaTek Dimensity 1000(+) Qualcomm Snapdragon 690, 750G, 865(+) and 870 HiSilicon Kirin 9000 Samsung Exynos 880, 980
Cortex-A78	Google Tensor G2 MediaTek MT6877, MT6878, MT6879, MT6891, MT6893, Dimensity 7020, 7025, 7030, 7050, 8000, 8020, 8050, 8100, 8200, Kompanio 900T, 1200, 1380, 1300T Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1, 4 Gen 2, 695, 6 Gen 1, 778G(+), 780G, 782G, 888(+) Samsung Exynos 1080, 1280, 1330, 1380, 2100
Cortex-X1	Google Tensor, Tensor G2 Qualcomm Snapdragon 888(+) Samsung Exynos 2100
Neoverse N1	Ampere Altra, Altra Max AWS Graviton2
Others	Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE, Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A78C, Cortex-X1C, Neoverse E1
ARMv8.2-A compatible	Apple A11 Fujitsu A64FX HiSilicon TaiShan v110 Nvidia Tegra Xavier (Carmel) Samsung Exynos M3 (Meerkat), M4 (Cheetah), M5 (Lion)

ARMv8.3-A

ARMv8.3-A compatible	Apple A12, A12X/A12Z, S4, S5 Marvell ThunderX3

ARMv8.4-A

Neoverse V1	AWS Graviton3
ARMv8.4-A compatible	Apple A13, S6, S7, S8

ARMv8.5-A

ARMv8.5-A compatible	Apple A14, M1

ARMv8.6-A

ARMv8.6-A compatible	Apple A15, A16, A17, M2, M3

ARMv9.0-A

Cortex-A510	MediaTek Dimensity 7200 (Pro/Ultra), 8300 (Ultra), 9000/9000+, 9200 Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, 7s/7+ Gen 2, 7 Gen 3, 8(+) Gen 1, 8 Gen 2 Samsung Exynos 2200
Cortex-A710	MediaTek Dimensity 9000/9000+ Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, 7s/7+ Gen 2, 8(+) Gen 1, 8 Gen 2 Samsung Exynos 2200
Cortex-A715	MediaTek Dimensity 7200 (Pro/Ultra), 8300 (Ultra), 9200 Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, 8 Gen 2
Cortex-X2	MediaTek Dimensity 9000/9000+ Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s/7+ Gen 2, 8(+) Gen 1 Samsung Exynos 2200
Cortex-X3	Google Tensor G3 MediaTek Dimensity 9200/9200+ Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
Neoverse N2	Alibaba YiTian 710 Microsoft Azure Cobalt 100
Neoverse V2	AWS Graviton4 Nvidia Grace Google Axion

ARMv9.2-A

Cortex-A520	Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, Snapdragon 8(s) Gen 3 Samsung Exynos 2400
Cortex-A720	MediaTek Dimensity 9300(+) Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, Snapdragon 8(s) Gen 3 Samsung Exynos 2400
Cortex-X4	MediaTek Dimensity 9300(+) Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, Snapdragon 8(s) Gen 3 Samsung Exynos 2400
Neoverse N3	-
Neoverse V3	-