NVIDIA released the architecture of its future chip Tegra Kal - El. This SoC that will very likely be the first ARM Xeon market includes an original technology to control consumption: Variable Symmetric Multiprocessing (vSMP). It is neither more nor less than to add a 5th heart very low frequency.
Kal - El is therefore not a Xeon but a pentacoeur. The fifth, called heart companion, is functionally identical to the other Nvidia (ARM Cortex A9). But it is engraved following a different process, a variant of the 40 nm TSMC optimized for low consumption. In other words, it cannot operate at frequencies levelled as high as these brothers (it off at 500 MHz), but in Exchange, it requires a lower voltage and therefore consumes much less power.
This fifth wheel of the bus takes over from the other four hearts for tasks very few gourmandes in CPU power: relieved of emails in background, synchronizations, audio listening, video playback, etc. When CPU load is more important, Kal - El switches on his hearts high frequency, the heart being disabled Companion. Their activation is also progressive also (see opposite picture).
In the end, while Kal - El offers raw power twice Tegra 2, it can consume up to 60% less video and even read 34% less in a game.
This toggle management complex between 5 fact hearts appeal both to dedicated circuits and a software component of low level. However, NVIDIA ensures that no changes should be made to the OS (Android Honeycomb) or applications. All hearts are identical, the presence of the companion is transparent to the OS. In addition, the five Cortex A9 use a level 2 common cache. According Nvidia measures, time the rocking of the heart companion to major hearts is less than 2 ms and does not result in noticeable latency.
The only point that Nvidia keeps well to talk about is the size of Kal - El: with 2.5 times more than hearts Tegra 2, the same fineness of engraving, hearts larger given the addition of a SIMD unit a GPU with more units and circuits dedicated to management of the vSMP, Kal - El will necessarily be a big chip. It will be expensive to produce and difficult to integrate into smartphones that the public wants always fine and light.
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