28nm high- metal-gate heterogeneous quad-core CPUs for high-performance and energy-efficient mobile application processor

Abstract

The proliferation of high-performance mobile devices is growing exponentially around the world. The essential driving force behind these ubiquitous devices is the high-performance CPU. To satisfy ever growing consumer demand for higher performance, a high-speed and multicore CPU configuration is mandatory, while energy efficiency is equally important for longer battery life. Furthermore, in order to support the wide range of performance (compute-intensive tasks, as well as less intensive tasks) required by today's mobile devices, a heterogeneous dual-CPU configuration comprising a high-performance CPU and an energy-efficient CPU can be one of the most energy efficient solutions for accomplishing both high-intensity and low-intensity tasks.