Imagination Technologies unveils first MIPS 'Warrior P-Class' CPU core
Imagination Technologies, a leader in multimedia, processor, communications and cloud technologies, has announces the first MIPS Series 5 'Warrior P-class' CPU, pushing forward a new wave in high-performance MIPS CPU IP cores.
The new MIPS P5600 core delivers industry-leading 32-bit performance, and brings with it low power characteristics and a silicon footprint up to 30 percent smaller than comparable CPU cores. It can operate from 1GHz to 2GHz and can deliver 1.2x to 2x performance gains on a wide variety of system-oriented benchmarks, including SPECint2000, Linpack, and JavaScript and browser tests. This makes it suitable for a wide range of mobile, consumer and embedded applications.
The MIPS P5600 incorporates features:
- Full 128-bit SIMD designed for high performance on data parallel operations such as DSP, imaging and media
- Simple, flexible and complete hardware virtualization
- Next-generation security to address modern media delivery requirements
- Support for up to six cores per cluster with high-performance cache coherence.
The MIPS P5600 also brings with it advanced addressing in the form of Enhanced Virtual Addressing (EVA) which enables more flexible usage of virtual address space, allowing for easy and efficient use of memory for larger footprint Linux implementations, and Extended Physical Addressing (XPA) that allows a 32-bit system to access physical memory beyond the 32-bit limit, up to a total of 1TB.
The P5600 has been designed specifically for SoCs targeting next-generation mobile phones and tablets, as well as connected consumer products such as set-top boxes, while at the same time offering the power and flexibility for office networking and micro-servers.
"As the first new MIPS core introduced since the acquisition of MIPS Technologies, the MIPS P5600 shows that Imagination Technologies is pushing the historic MIPS architecture forward," said Tom R. Halfhill, a senior analyst with The Linley Group and a senior editor of Microprocessor Report.
"It's the first MIPS core to implement the MIPS Release 5 ISA, which includes important features like the MIPS SIMD Architecture and virtualization. We're looking forward to seeing the rest of the MIPS Warrior family rolled out over the next year."