Reproduction micros
Pete Turnbull
pete at dunnington.plus.com
Wed Jul 20 17:28:52 CDT 2016
On 20/07/2016 20:29, Paul Koning wrote:
> I don't remember the earlier ARM designs, but it was my impression
> that DEC's StrongARM was the one that made really large strides in
> low power (especially power per MHz of clock speed). Interestingly
> enough, StrongARM was one of the few (and the first?) independent
> designs; it used the ARM architecture specification but not the
> actual logic design as others did.
That's almost right. An ARM2 dissipates less than 2W (according to my
data sheet, but that's maximum allowed dissipation and I think typical
consumption is much less than 1W) with its normal 5V supply, averaging
some 6-8 MIPS with a 12MHZ clock. It's a 2micron CMOS process. The
original ARM used a 3micron process but was only used for testing and
development; I can't remember what ARM3 used but IIRC it was a lot
smaller though still the same core design, and it's certainly low power
(under 1W) despite having a lot more transistors (largely for cache) and
a higher clock speed.
StrongARM SA-110 uses roughly 450mW, but with Vcc around 1.75V it
claimed about 100 MIPS at 100MHz, in a 0.35micron process. It was a
collaboration between ARM and Digital, but AIUI the hardware design was
done mainly or perhaps completely by Digital. Yes, it was the first
independent design, as far as I know. Earliest designs were done by
Acorn and later I think by Acorn with VLSI, and ARM with Digital
(ARM6/7). I had access to early SA-110 development stuff for a project
in 1996 but I had to go to Digital to get it, not Acorn/ARM.
--
Pete
More information about the cctech
mailing list