| General information | |
|---|---|
| Launched | 2016 |
| Designed by | ARM Holdings |
| Max.CPUclock rate | to 2.8 GHz |
| Physical specifications | |
| Cores |
|
| Cache | |
| L1cache | 96–128 KiB (64 KiB I-cache with parity, 32–64 KiB D-cache)per core |
| L2 cache | 1–8MiB |
| L3 cache | None |
| Architecture and classification | |
| Application | Mobile |
| Instruction set | ARMv8-A |
| Products, models, variants | |
| Product code name |
|
| History | |
| Predecessors | ARM Cortex-A72 ARM Cortex-A17 |
| Successor | ARM Cortex-A75 |
TheARM Cortex-A73 is acentral processing unit implementing theARMv8-A 64-bitinstruction set designed byARM Holdings'Sophia design centre. The Cortex-A73 is a 2-wide decodeout-of-ordersuperscalar pipeline.[1] The Cortex-A73 serves as the successor of theCortex-A72, designed to offer 30% greater performance or 30% increasedpower efficiency.[2]
The design of the Cortex-A73 is based on the32-bitARMv7-ACortex-A17, emphasizing power efficiency and sustained peak performance.[3] The Cortex-A73 is primarily targeted atmobile computing.[4] In reviews, the Cortex-A73 showed improvedintegerinstructions per clock (IPC), though lowerfloating point IPC, relative to the Cortex-A72.[5]
The Cortex-A73 is available asSIP core to licensees, and its design makes it suitable for integration with other SIP cores (e.g.GPU,display controller,DSP,image processor, etc.) into onedie constituting asystem on a chip (SoC).
The Cortex-A73 is also the first ARM core to be modified through ARM's semi-custom 'Built on ARM' license.[6][7] TheKryo 280 was the first released semi-custom product, though the modifications made relative to the stock Cortex-A73 were not announced.[5]
TheHiSiliconKirin 960, released in 2016, utilizes 4 Cortex-A73 cores (clocked at 2.36 GHz) as the 'big' cores in abig.LITTLE arrangement with 4 'little'ARM Cortex-A53 cores.[8]
TheMediaTekHelio X30 utilizes 2 Cortex-A73 cores (at 2.56 GHz) as the 'big' cores in deca-core big.LITTLE arrangement with 4Cortex-A53 and 4Cortex-A35 'little' cores.[9]
The Kryo 280, released in March 2017 byQualcomm in theSnapdragon835, uses a modified Cortex-A73 core.[5][10] The SoC utilizes 8 Kryo 280 cores in a big.LITTLE arrangement as two 4-core blocks, clocked at 2.456 GHz and 1.906 GHz. The modifications made by Qualcomm relative to the stock Cortex-A73 core are unknown, and the resulting Kryo 280 core demonstrated increased integer IPC.[5] The Kryo 260 also used Cortex-A73 cores, though at lower clock speeds than the Kryo 280 and in combination withCortex-A53 cores.[11]
The Cortex-A73 is also found in a wide range of mid-range chipsets such as theSamsungExynos 7885, MediaTek Helio P series, and other HiSilicon Kirin models. Like the Snapdragon 636/660, most of these chipsets implement 4 A73 cores and 4 A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration, although some lower end models of Samsung chips implement only 2 A73 cores with 6 A53 cores.