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© Ville Pietikäinen 2002 Embedded_3_ARM_2003.ppt / 19112002
ARM architecture
ARM7, ARM9, TDMI...
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© Ville Pietikäinen 2002 Embedded_3_ARM_2003.ppt / 19112002
Brief history of ARM
• ARM is short for Advanced Risc Machines Ltd.
• Founded 1990, owned by Acorn, Apple and VLSI
• Known before becoming ARM as computer manufacturer
Acorn which developed a 32-bit RISC processor for it’s own
use (used in Acorn Archimedes)
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© Ville Pietikäinen 2002 Embedded_3_ARM_2003.ppt / 19112002
Why ARM here?
• ARM is one of the most licensed and thus widespread
processor cores in the world
• Used especially in portable devices due to low power
consumption and reasonable performance (MIPS / watt)
• Several interesting extensions available or in development like
Thumb instruction set and Jazelle Java machine
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© Ville Pietikäinen 2002 Embedded_3_ARM_2003.ppt / 19112002
ARM
• Processor cores: ARM6, ARM7, ARM9, ARM10, ARM11
• Extensions: Thumb, El Segundo, Jazelle etc.
• IP-blocks: UART, GPIO, memory controllers, etc
CPU
Description
ISA
Process
Voltage
Area mm2 Power mW Clock /
MHz
Mips /
MHz
ARM7TD
MI
Core
V4T
0.18u
1.8V
0.53
<0.25
60-110
0.9
ARM7TD
MI-S
Synthesizable
core
V4T
0.18u
1.8V
<0.8
<0.4
>50
0.9
ARM9TD
MI
Core
V4T
0.18u
1.8V
1.1
0.3
167-220
1.1
ARM920T Macrocell
16+16kB cache
V4T
0.18u
1.8V
11.8
0.9
140-200
1.05
ARM940T Macrocell
8+8kB cache
V4T
0.18u
1.8V
4.2
0.85
140-170
1.05
ARM9E-S Synthesizable
core
V5TE 0.18u
1.8V
?
~1
133-200
1.1
ARM1020
E
Macrocell
32+32kB cache
V5TE 0.15u
1.8V
~10
~0.85
200-400
1.25
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© Ville Pietikäinen 2002 Embedded_3_ARM_2003.ppt / 19112002
ARM architecture
• ARM:
• 32-bit RISC-processor core (32-bit instructions)
• 37 pieces of 32-bit integer registers (16 available)
• Pipelined (ARM7: 3 stages)
• Cached (depending on the implementation)
• Von Neuman-type bus structure (ARM7), Harvard (ARM9)
• 8 / 16 / 32 -bit data types
• 7 modes of operation (usr, fiq, irq, svc, abt, sys, und)
• Simple structure -> reasonably good speed / power
consumption ratio
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© Ville Pietikäinen 2002 Embedded_