Difference Between Apple A5 and NVIDIA Tegra 3

苹果A5 vsNVIDIA Tegra 3 | Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad-Core Processor vs Apple A5 Processor Speed, Performance

This article compares two recent System-on-Chips (SoC), Apple A5 and NVIDIA Tegra3, designed for consumer electronics by Apple and NVIDIA respectively. In a Layperson’s term, a SoC is a computer on a single IC (Integrated Circuit, aka chip). Technically, a SoC is an IC that integrates typical components on a computer (such as microprocessor, memory, input/output) and other systems that cater electronic and radio functionalities. Both Apple A5 and NVIDIA Tegra3 are Multiprocessor System-on-Chip (MPSoC), where the design uses multiprocessor architecture for exploiting the available computing power. While Apple released A5 in March 2011 with its iPad2, NVIDIA released Tegra3 in November 2011, and it is yet to be used in consumer electronics.

Typically, the major components of a SoC are its CPU (Central Processing Unit) and GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). The CPUs in both Apple A5 and Tegra3 are based on ARM’s (Advanced RICS – Reduced Instruction Set Computer – Machine, developed byARM Holdings) v7 ISA (Instruction Set Architecture, the one that is used as the starting place of designing a processor).

Apple A5

A5于2011年3月首次销售，当时苹果发布了最新的平板电脑IPAD2。后来，苹果公司最近的iPhone克隆iPhone 4S释放了配备Apple A5。Apple A5是由Apple设计的，由三星代表Apple设计。与其前任Apple A4相反，A5在其CPU和GPU中具有双重核心。因此，从技术上讲，Apple A5不仅是SOC，而且是MPSOC（芯片上的多处理器系统）。A5的Dual Core CPU基于ARM Cotex-A9处理器（使用Apple A4使用的同一ARM V7 ISA），其双核GPU基于PowerVR SGX543MP2图形处理器。A5的CPU通常以1GHz为时钟（时钟使用频率缩放；因此，基于负载，定位功率节省的时钟速度可以从800MHz变为1GHz）及其GPU时钟在200MHz。A5具有L1（指令和数据）和L2缓存记忆。A5配备了一个512MB DDR2内存软件包，通常以533MHz为单位。

NVIDIA Tegra3 (Series)

NVIDIA, originally a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) manufacturing company [claimed to have invented GPUs in the late nineties] have recently moved into the mobile computing market, where NVIDIA’s System on Chips (SoC) are deployed in phones, tablets and other handheld devices. Tegra is a SoC series developed by NVIDIA targeting deployment in the mobile market. The first MPSoC in Tegra3 series was released in early November 2011 and yet to be deployed in commercially available devices.

NVIDIA claims that Tegra3 is the first mobilesuper processor，首次将四核Arm Cotex-A9架构放在一起。尽管Tegra3具有四个（因此是四臂）ARM Cotex-A9核作为其主要CPU，但它具有辅助臂Cotex-A9核心（命名为The The Thecompanion核心），与其他建筑相同，但在低功率织物上蚀刻和频率很低。虽然主芯可以在1.3GHz（所有四个核心都活跃时）至1.4GHz（当只有四个内核中的一个处于活动状态时），而辅助核心时钟为500MHz。辅助核心的目标是在设备处于待机模式并因此节省电源时运行背景过程。Tegra3中使用的GPU是NVIDIA的GeForce，其中包含12个核心。Tegra 3具有与Tegra 2相似的L1 CACHE和L2 CACHE，并且最多可包装2GB DDR2 RAM。

下面列出了Apple A5和Nvidia Tegra3之间的比较。

概括

总而言之，以Tegra 3系列的名义，NVIDIA发出了高潜力的MPSOC。显然，在计算能力和图形性能方面，它的表现都超过了Apple A5。一个想法companioncore is very neat, as it can be put to high use for mobile devices as such devices are in standby mode more often than not, and they are expected to run background tasks. Apple A5 has proved to be a market success in its deployment, iPad2 and iPhone 4S. Some can argue that the expensive, low- power fabric used in the companion core can burden the users. How the mobile computing industry is going to utilize the potential and the market viability of Tegra3 is yet to be seen.