Michael S (already5chosen@yahoo.com) on 9/22/09 wrote:
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>Wilco (Wilco.Dijkstra@ntlworld.com) on 9/22/09 wrote:
>---------------------------
>>Michael S (already5chosen@yahoo.com) on 9/22/09 wrote:
>>---------------------------
>>>Wilco (Wilco.Dijkstra@ntlworld.com) on 9/16/09 wrote:
>>>---------------------------
>>>>http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/sep/16/mobilephones-netbooks
>>>>http://www.arm.com/news/25922.html
>>>>
>>>>This is a hardened 40nm dual core Cortex-A9 in power and speed optimized variants:
>>>>
>>>>2GHz - 1.9W
>>>>800MHz - 0.5W
>>>>
>>>>I think this refutes the claim in another thread that an OoO core needs more power
>>>>and must be lower clocked than an in-order core at the same process node.
>>>>
>>>>Wilco
>>>
>>>Sort of, off topic, but it's still about ARM ISA application processor, so not so much off topic.
>>>
>>>http://www.marvell.com/press/pressNewsDisplay.do?releaseID=1329
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>AFAIR, PXA920 core is an offspring of mid 90s Digital StrongArm CPU with relatively
>>>minor tweaks made by Intel Arizona. This processor line always was one of the less
>>>power efficient ARM cores on the market and by now it's probably the least efficient
>>>of them all. In the past, at least, it was one of the best performers but by now
>>>several ARM cores are faster and at least Cortex-A and Qualcomm Scorpion are very
>>>significantly faster. Besides, if I am not mistaken, PXA920 has no support for Thumb2 nor for Neon nor for VFP.
>>>So why of all ARM products China Mobile picked one which is hot, slow and incompatible
>>>core? Is uncore part so much better than everybody else?
>>
>>Marvell have developed many different cores which are unrelated to XScale (they started doing this years before acquiring XScale). It's not clear which Sheeva variant is used in PXA920, this http://www.marvell.com/technologies/cpu_history/cpu_history.jsp
>>claims the top end Sheeva is dual issue OoO and supports ARMv7 (including VFP,
>>not sure about Neon).
>
>
>http://www.marvell.com/files//products/cellular/PXA_90_R4.pdf
>>
>
>Sounds like XScale.

That's the PXA90x, which seems older generation (dated 2006). The press release explicitly stated Sheeva.

>>Marvell chips are in many of today's phones so I doubt they are inefficient.
>>
>>Wilco
>
>I'd think many (most?) of today's phones are shipped with small under 100 MIPS application processors.

Very true. However the XScales used in phones are between 300 and 500MHz, so not particularly slow. Many run Windows mobile.

Wilco