Arm unveils new Cortex, Mali and Ethos CPUs, GPUs and NPUs

U.K.-based Arm announced a slew of new IP, including new CPUs, GPUs and NPUs. The new IP will likely form the foundations of upcoming systems-on-a-chip (SoC) found in smartphones in the future.

To start, Arm unveiled its newest Cortex-A78 CPU. The company says it’s the most efficient Cortex-A series CPU it’s designed yet. It offers a 20 percent increase in sustained performance over the previous A77 CPU within a 1-watt power budget. Further, Arm included a focus on 5G in the chip. Finally, Arm says the new Cortext-A78 can more efficiently handle compute workloads, making it able to better handle on-device machine learning (ML).

On top of that, Arm says the Cortex-A78’s performance-per-watt makes it perfectly suited for use in foldable and large-screen devices.

Along with the A78, Arm also announced the first CPU to come out of its Cortex-X Custom program. The program allows for greater customization and differentiation beyond the typical Cortex product roadmap and can enable more powerful performance for specific use cases.

As such, the new Cortex-X1 CPU is Arm’s most powerful offering to date, boasting a 30 percent increase in peak performance over the Cortex-A77.

On the GPU side, Arm announced the new Mali-G78. Once again based on the Valhall architecture, the G78 delivers a 25 percent increase in graphics performance compared to the Mali-G77. Additionally, the Mali-G78 supports up to 24 cores and is more power-efficient, making it easier on mobile device battery. Arm announced a new sub-premium GPU tier, which includes the Mali-G68. It sports all the same features of the G78 but with support for up to six cores.

Finally, Arm’s new neural processing unit (NPU), the Ethos-N78 brings 25 percent more performance efficiency, giving devices greater ML capabilities. The N78 is highly configurable, with options ranging from one TOP/s to 10 TOP/s.

Those interested can learn more about Arm’s new IP on the company’s blog.

Image credit: Arm