ARM has announced a new licensing model for its dual processor architecture known as big.LITTLE.
Cambridge-based ARM said it is making the change to widen use of the technology which combines Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 processor cores.
Under the terms of a single use design license (SUDL), it will be possible to license the individual components required to enable the development of a big.LITTLE system, including the Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 processors.
But also includes licences for the CoreLink Cache Coherent Interconnect (CCI-400), the Generic Interrupt Controller (GIC-400) and the AMBA Domain Bridge (ADB-400), all as a single package.
The package will also allow users to add a licence for the firm’s Mali-T600 graphics processor or its POP technology for core-hardening acceleration.
The rationale for the big.LITTLE architecture is to optimise power and performance by combining the Cortex-A15 processor, ARM’s highest performance processor, with the more power efficient Cortex-A7 processor.
The CCI-400 is the industry-leading, silicon-proven, cache-coherent interconnect for big.LITTLE systems.
It has been designed and tested with other CoreLink components, such as the Network Interrupt Controller (NIC-400) and the Dynamic Memory Controller (DMC-400), which share the same end-to-end Quality of Service protocol.
According to ARM, current big.LITLE licensees include Samsung, Renesas, CSR, Fujitsu and MediaTek.
