Selected ARMv8 SOCs

A32 ARMv8 32bit

A32 core was announced in February 2016. It is basically an A35 without 64bit support. This allows to make the chip even smaller then A35, it take about 30% less space then A35. Designed to be used in 28nm process.

A35 ARMv8 64bit

A35 core was announced in Octover 2015. SOCs will still be produced in 28nm process.
According to ARM  the A35 has 25% smaller size and consumes 32% less power then A53. This design should be used in many successors of 32bit A7 SOCs. First Hardware is expected end of 2016.

A53 ARMv8 64bit

A53 is the energy efficient 64bit core by ARM.
These SOCs are manufactured in 28nm process.
In benchmarks these SOCs are usually slower than A15 cores.

Allwinner A64

• 4x A53
• Mali400MP2 

Huawei Kirin 620

• 8x A53 1.2GHz
• Mali 450MP4

Rockchip RK3368

• 8x A53 
• PowerVR G6110 

Qualcomm Snapdragon 615

• 8x A53
• Adreno 405

ARMv8 64bit A57

This is ARMs first fast 64bit core. These were used since mid 2015 high end smartphones and tablets. Manufactured using 20nm process.
Drawback is that this chips dissipate lot of power.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 808

• 2x A57 4x A53
• Adreno 418 

This SOC is used e.g. in Nexus 5X. There are only two fast A57 cores, but usually devices using the 808 can last longer in full speed mode than 810 before having to reduce clock speed to prevent overheating

Qualcomm Snapdragon 810

• 4x A57 4x A53
• Adreno 430 

This SOC was used many high end smartphones in second half of 2015; e.g. Sony Xperia Z5 or HTC one M9 with 2.0GHz A57 and 1.5GHz A53.
Also Nexus 6P or OnePlus Two use it, and many others.

 Samsung Exynos 7420

• 4x A57 4x A53
• Mali-T760 MP8

This SOC is used in Samsung S6 with 2.1GHz A57 and 1.5GHz A53.

ARMv8 64bit A72 

This is ARMs fastest 64bit processor, announced in April 2015 with arrival of first SOCs at End of 2015. These cores are faster than A57 while using less energy. These SOCs are build using a 16nm process.

Mediatek MT8173

• 2x A72 2x A53
• PowerVR GX6250 

Mediatek Helio 20

• 2x A72 (2.5GHz)  4x A53 (2GHz) 4x53 (1.4GHz)
• Mali T880

Mediatek Helio 30

• 4x A72 (2.5GHz) 2xA72(2GHz) 2x A53(1.5GHz) 2x A53(1GHz)
• Mali T880

Huawei Kirin 940

• 4x A72 4x A53
• 2.2GHz
• Mali T860

Huawei Kirin 950

• 4x A72 2.3GHz 4x A53 1.8GHz
• Mali T880 

Rockchip RK3399 

• 2x A72   4x A53
• Mali T864

Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 (618) 

This SOC was renamed from 618 to 650 to be better distinguished from 60x and 61x SOCs with A53 cores.

• 2x A72 4x A53
• 1.8GHz
• Adreno 510

Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 (620) 

This SOC was renamed from 618 to 650 to be better distinguished from 60x and 61x SOCs with A53 cores. 

• 4x A72 4x A53
• 1.8GHz
• Adreno 510

ARMv8 64bit A73 

Announced in June 2016 with arrival of first SOCs in early 2017. Should be at least 10% faster than A72 while using up to 20% less energy. This SOCs are build using a 10nm process.

Huawei Kirin 960

• 4x A73 2.4GHz 4x A53 1.8GHz
• Mali G71

ARMv8 64bit A75

Announced in June 2016 with arrival of first SOCs expected in early 2018.

Custom ARMv8 implementations

Qualcomm Kyro

Qualcomm is busy developing it's own ARMv8 implementation with codename "Kyro"
First high end devices were announced in February 2016 at MWC in Barcelona.
Should be even faster than A72 cores.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 820

• 4x Kyro
• 2.2GHz 
• Adreno 530

The fastest smartphone chip around 2016.

It is used in many high end designs e.g. in some Samsung S7 devices, Xiaomi MI5, LG G5 and Oneplus 3. S7 and MI5 will shipped in March 2016, G5 in April and Onplus 3 in June.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 821

This SOC has same spec as 820, but with 10% higher clockspeed. It was officially announce in July 2016, first devices are expected to arrive to market this autumn, e.g. Samsung Note S7 oder Nexus 2016 devices made by HTC.

Qualcomm Kyro 2

The new Kyro generation will appear end of 2016 in form of Snapdragon 828 and 835 SOCs and are made from 10nm process.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 835

• 4x Kyro 280 fast (2.45GHz)  4x Kyro 2 slow (1.9GHz)
• Adreno 540 GPU

This SOC will be used in high end devices in 2017.

Samsung 

Samsung was also developing for the first time it own fast design. It is called M1 "Mongoose" and is also very fast.

Exynos 8 Octa 8890

• 4x M1
• 4x A53
• 2.3GHz
• Mali T880 MP12

This SOC is used e.g. in some Samsung S7 devices.

40nm, 28nm, 16nm,...

Most companies in the ARM market are fabless. This means they design the SoCs but manufacturing is outsourced to so-called foundries.
There are only few companies on the market which are able produce modern SoCs. Nearly all ARM processors are made by TSMC, Samsung or GlobalFoundries.

While older and cheap SoCs are still made in 40nm process, most current ones use 28nm.

For modern A57,A72 cores you need a 16nm process.
This process was started by TSMC in mid 2015. In the beginning, Apple used major part of production for its A9 SoCs. Starting 2016, other big companies use this process, too. E.g. Qualcomm has designed its Snapdragon 820 chip for the 16nm process.

It will take a while until small companies like Allwinner and Rockchip will have access to 16nm process and will be able to produce high end SoCs. In the meantime, they will design mid range products using matured 28nm process.

There were rumours that Apple will be again customer for the next step. There should be a 10nm process sometimes mid 2016. But Apple seems to still use 16nm process for the A10 Fusion chip found in iPhone7 introduced in September 2016.

List of Quad Core Single Board Computers

ARMv7 Quad Core

Raspberry Pi 2

• Broadcom BCM2836
• 4x A7 900MHz
• 1 GB RAM
• 0GB NAND Flash( MicroSD storage slot)
• 35$

Raspberry Pi 2 was released in February 2015. Best software support in this class.

Odroid C1+

• Amlogic S805
• 4x A5 1.5GHz
• 1GB RAM
• 0GB NAND Flash( eMMC4.5 flash and MicroSD storage slot)
• 37$

Odroid C1 was introduced to market in December 2014 for 35$.
About 40% faster than Raspberry Pi 2.
Since August 2015 there is a successor board Odroid C1+ with small improvements and large heatsink for 37$.

Radxa Rock Lite

• Rockchip RK3188
• 4x A9 1.6Ghz
• 1GB RAM
• 0GB NAND Flash
• 39$ (since March 2015)

After 20$ price drop also an interesting board. Should be even faster than Odroid C1.

Radxa Rock Pro

• Rockchip RK3188
• 4x A9 1.6Ghz
• 2GB RAM
• 8GB NAND Flash
• 79$ (since March 2015)

For extra $$, you get 2GB RAM and 8GB included flash memory which is faster then SD card.

H4 Merrii Hummingbird

• Allwinner A31
• 4x A7 1GHz
• 1GB RAM
• 70$

Merri makes the official dev boards for Allwinner. Because of little public support and the current price tag this is not very interesting for non professional developers.

ARMv7 Octo Core and Fast (A12,A15,A17) Quadcore

These are currently the high end ARM development boards.
At least until 64bit ARM8 boards enter the market.

Optimus Board

• Allwinner A80
• 4x A15 4x A7
• 4GB RAM
• 169$

The official board from Allwinner.

Cubieboard 4

• Allwinner A80
• 4x A15 4x A7
• 2GB RAM
• 125$

Released now in March 2015.

Radxa Rock 2

• Rockchip RK3288
• 4x A17
• 2GB RAM (4GB optional)
• 129$

 The Rock 2 is designed as SOM board and base board combination.

Firefly

• Rockchip RK3288
• 4x A17
• 2GB RAM
• 129$ on aliexpress, 140$ at geekbuying.

"official sale" since 10/31/14 on aliexpress. There is now also an English webpage with forum.

Hardkernel XU3

• Samsung Exynos 5422 2.0GHz
• 4x A15 4x A7
• 2GB RAM
• 179$

Interesting board with built-in energy monitor. Now discontinued and superseded by XU4 board.

Hardkernel XU3 Lite

• Samsung Exynos 5422 1.8GHz
• 4x A15 4x A7
• 2GB RAM
• 99$

This is "low-cost" version of XU3 with slightly slower clock speed, removed display port and removed energy monitor at an interesting price.
Interesting board with built-in energy monitor. Now discontinued and superseded by XU4 board. 

Hardkernel XU4

• Samsung Exynos 5422 2.0GHz
• 4x A15 4x A7
• 2GB RAM
• 0GB NAND Flash( eMMC5.0 and MicroSD storage slot) 
• 2xUSB 3.0 1xUSB 2.0
• 1xGigabit Ethernet
• 74$ (including 5V5A PSU)
• Cooling with fan

New board, announced in July 2015.
Seems to be to currently the best choice in this group of boards, because of best price/performance ratio.

NVIDIA Jetson TK1

• Tegra K1 2.3GHz
• 4x A15 1x A7
• 2GB RAM
• 16 GB eMMC
• 1x USB 3.0
• 1x RS232 serial port
• 1x Gigabit Ethernet 
• 192$

Interesting board because of "Kepler" GPU.

ARM GPU Overview

There are different GPUs used in current ARM SOCs.
For nearly all GPUs, OSS enthusiasts tried to create open software drivers.

Nivida Kepler

is used in Tegra K1and is quite well supported by Nouveau project.

Adreno

is used in Qualcomm SOCs. The Freedreno project by  Rob Clark tries
to create an open source driver.
This seems to be currently the most advanced project.
https://github.com/freedreno/freedreno/wiki

VideoCore (VC4)

is used in Raspberry PI. Broadcom has hired Eric Anholt to create an Open Source Mesa and DRM Kernel driver. Latest status can be found here
http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/VC4/

Vivante

is used in SOCs from Freescale, Marvell and a few other companies.
See  https://github.com/laanwj/etna_viv
for latest status.

Mali

is the GPU by ARM and used in SOCs by different companies. The
Lima Project by Luc Verhaegen tries to create a free driver for
M200/400/450 GPUs while there seems to be a still unreleased TAMIL project for newer T6xx and T7xx GPUs in the works.

PowerVR

is GPU by  Imagination Technologies used in SOCs by different companies.
http://powervr.gnu.org.ve/doku.php. 
Currently least supported GPU. But maybe this will change because

Imagination Technologies tries to compete the  ARM boards with their MIPS Creator CI20 SBC.

64bit ARM development boards

Although there are now several 64bit ARM SOCs out in the wild for some time, it took some time until affordable development board reached the market.

There exist a ARM Juno board, but it is only available for ARM partners.

AMD A1100 Opteron development kit is for sale and but costs a whopping 2999$.

Allwinner had announced Nobel64 board with a H64 quad core 64bit CPU which was expected to go on sale in early 2015, but was not available in 2015.

96boards has announced the HiKey board featuring the Kirin 620  with 8 Cortex-A53 64-bit cores. It was released in Q4 2015 and it currently sold for 75$ (1GB RAM) and 99$ (2GB RAM).

The Dragonboard 410c uses a Qualcomm 410 with 4 Cortex -A53 cores and 1GB RAM. It is sold for 75$

The Odroid C2 features a Amlogic S905 with 4 Cortex-A53 cores and 2GB RAM. It is available starting March 2016 for 40$.

There exists a Raspberry 3 since February 29 2016 using a Broadcom SoC with 4  Cortex-A53 cores at 1.2GHz and 1GB RAM, featuring WIFI and Bluetooth. It is sold for 35$.

On Kickstarter, a Pine64 board was announced which an Allwinner R18 SoC with  4  Cortex-A53 cores at 1.2GHz. It should also ship in March, too.



It may take a while (probably mid 2016) until fast (A57,A72) SoCs are available on affordable development boards. 

Apple 64bit SOCs

Apple

Apple A7

• Dual Core
• Apple "Cyclone" architecture
• 1.3GHz
• PowerVR GPU
• 28nm Process

With shipment of iPhone 5s, Apple introduced in September 2013 its first ARMv8 64bit design on the market.
Use of 64bit CPU in Smartphones and Tablets surprised other companies and they are still busy trying to catch up.

Apple A8

• Dual Core
• Apple "Typhoon" architecture
• 1.4GHz
• PowerVR GPU Series 6XT GX6450 4way
• 20nm Process

Announced September 2014, used in iPhone 6.
About 25% faster than A7.

Apple A8X

• Triple Core
• Apple "Typhoon" architecture
• 1.5 GHz
• PowerVR GPU 8 way
• 20nm Process

Announced October 2014, used in iPad Air2 and iPad Mini3.
With slightly higher clock speed and additional cores about 50% faster then A7.

Apple A9

• Dual Core 
• Apple "Twister" architecture
• 1.85GHz
• PowerVR GPU with 6 shader kernels.
• Manufactured by Samsung (14mm)and TMSC(16mm)

Announced in September 2015, used in iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. These are the first iPhones which use 2GB RAM.

Apple A9X

• Dual Core
• Apple "Twister" architecture
• 2.26GHz
• PowerVR Series 7 CPU with 12 shader kernels.
• Manufactured by Samsung (14mm)and TMSC(16mm)

Announced in September 2015, used in iPad Pro.

Apple A10 Fusion

• Quad Core with two fast and two slow Cores
• 2.3GHz
• Manufactured by TMSC(16mm)

This next generation chip appeared in September 2016 when iPhone 7 was released. It seems that only TMSC will produce them and they still use 16nm process to manufacture them.

Apple A10X Fusion

• Hexa Core with three fast and three slow Cores
• 2.38GHz
• Manufactured by TMSC(10mm)

This variant of A10 is used in iPad Pro models.

Apple A11

This chip should appear in fall 2017 when iPhone 8 is released. According to rumours, only TMSC will produce them and they will use 10nm process to manufacture them.

Apple A12

This chip will appear in 2018. It seems it will be manufactured by Samsung in 7mm.

ARM Web Hosting

2013

Since February 2013, pcExtreme startet colocation of Raspberry Pis as dedicated root servers. Other companies like FS Data in Sweden and Edis followed. In the beginning this service was free of charge.

2014

Now e.g. pcExtreme will ask for 3€ per month.
Nanoxion in France and mininodes in USA currently offer hosting on Cubieboard2 A20 single board computers.

2015

Scaleway offers their C1 servers using Marvell Armada 370/XP (4x A9) for 3€/month.

Hetzner has now Odroid XU4 root servers for rent using Samsung Exynos 5422 SOCs (4x A15 4xA7) for 10€/month.

Mininodes now offers ARMv8 Hosting using the HiKey 64-bit ARM development board using the HiSilicon 6220 processor with  8 ARM Cortex A53 cores for 25€/month.

2016

There should be dedicated hardware soon with many ARM cores and next year we should also get virtual hosting on ARM platform using KVM.