Smartphone games are about to usher in a new hardware revolution

Our lives are inseparable from the Arm architecture. Over the past 30 years, more than 225 billion chips have been shipped based on the Arm architecture. In particular, the current mobile phones are almost all Arm architecture.

In order to have a better gaming experience on your phone, you need lower latency, better graphics, and less phone heat. To achieve these upgrades, the underlying Arm architecture is critical.

Arm’s launch of the 2022 Total Computing Solution (TCS22), including new CPU and GPU IP, will help mobile phones create better gaming results and lower heat generation. The Arm IP portfolio of the TCS22 delivers a 28% performance boost across a range of workloads and a 16% reduction in power consumption.

This year’s focus is on gaming applications

Arm’s comprehensive computing solutions strategy has been around for many years and is designed to focus on computing performance, developer accessibility to performance and platform security. This has been best demonstrated in MediaTek’s Dimensity 9000 SoC, which has been adopted by OPPO and vivo in their phones through Armv9, as the foundation of the highest performance smartphone, bringing impeccable leading sustained performance.

According to Paul Williamson, Total Computing Solutions focuses on scalability by design. Arm can be configured through GPUs to meet the needs of a wide range of applications. For example, a small number of cores can be used for very efficient and compact designs, and a large number of cores can be used for the ultimate visual experience. In a CPU cluster, a similar approach can be taken, with different CPUs and different configurations for each application. At the same time, Arm is working closely with partners to make these scalability options different and combine with specialized computing to help partners accelerate the creation of the ideal SoC (system-on-chip) for the target use case.

Arm’s approach to comprehensive computing is a combination of a broad range of benchmarks and software workloads, taking into account many aspects. Every year, Arm is expanding the range of workloads under consideration, and this year, Arm is focusing more on the need for sustainable performance in real-world gaming applications. Sustained performance is key when it comes to an experience that can play games for extended periods of time on mobile devices.

“Computing today defines our everyday experiences, which are constantly changing. Visual experiences are everywhere, whether it’s for gaming or productivity, and smartphones are at the heart of visual experiences. Developers now need the performance to enrich and unleash them Creativity,” said Paul Williamson, Arm’s senior vice president and general manager of the Devices Group, Arm’s 2022 comprehensive computing solutions are designed to define the future of immersive 3D visuals.

Mobile is the largest gaming platform in the world, and mobile gaming is also the largest gaming market. Sustained performance becomes a key metric for gaming as the associated performance and demands grow. Mobile gaming puts a lot of emphasis on performance limits, and it’s Arm’s ability to provide comprehensive optimizations on both the CPU and GPU that contribute to this performance boost.

Mobile phones will usher in hardware changes

The new products mainly include new CPU IP and GPU IP.

CPU IP: super-large core Cortex-X3, large-core Cortex-A715, small-core Cortex-A510.

Cortex-X3 (large core) is a custom project of Cortex-X to drive peak performance; Cortex-A715 (large core) focuses on achieving the best balance of performance and efficiency for sustained workloads; Cortex-A510 (small core) ) focuses on light workloads, primarily designed for high efficiency.

Compared with the latest Android flagship smartphones and the latest mainstream laptops, the Arm Cortex-X3 has improved performance by 25% and 34% respectively; the Arm Cortex-A715 has improved energy efficiency by 20% compared with the Cortex-A710. And the performance has increased by 5%, reaching an important milestone comparable to the performance of Cortex-X1; Arm Cortex-A510 is the first high-efficiency small core launched by Arm in four years. This year’s updated version reduces power consumption while maintaining the same performance. 5%.

At present, mobile phone SoC chips generally adopt the design of “1 super core + 3 large cores + 4 small cores”, which uses the configuration of big and small cores (big. Commonly used heterogeneous processing architecture.

Compared to last year’s previous generation, the updated DSU-110 supports a 50% increase in the number of CPU cluster cores, enabling scalability for different grades of consumer-grade equipment.

GPU IP: Arm Immortalis, Mali-G715, Mali-G615.

Arm Immortalis is a brand-new flagship GPU product that builds on the deep technical heritage of Arm Mali, the world’s most-shipped GPU product (more than 8 billion units), configured and enhanced to deliver the ultimate mobile 3D experience. It is worth mentioning that it will be the first flagship GPU product that can support hardware-based ray tracing on the mobile side. Arm’s ray tracing unit is designed for efficiency, taking up only about 4% of the shader core area and consuming only a very small amount of power, but it can bring a significant performance improvement of 300% in related areas. Immortalis takes Arm-based scalable GPU architecture configurations to new heights, bringing the best performance to end users.

The Mali-G715 GPU offers the Variable Rate Shading graphics capabilities found on all new GPUs, which can significantly reduce power consumption and further improve gaming performance; to bring high-end mobile application scenarios, functions and features.

This time, the focus is on mobile games. AAA games with excellent visuals will inevitably have ray tracing technology. This time Arm’s GPU has begun to support hardware ray tracing, which means that a new era is coming.

“Arm’s latest products will bring unprecedented visual experiences to flagship and high-end mobile gaming devices. The new Immortalis GPUs with hardware-level ray tracing capabilities give developers the tools they need to create more immersive and immersive gaming experiences. The combination of Immortalis GPU and powerful Cortex-X3 CPU can achieve top mobile gaming performance and higher work efficiency.” said Dr. Xu Jingquan, Deputy General Manager of MediaTek and General Manager of Wireless Communication Division.

The present and future of comprehensive computing

The 2022 Total Computing Solutions (TCS22) includes three principles:

• In terms of performance, continue to promote the 64-bit design of mobile phones. 64-bit mobile phones have been in a state of hesitation in the past, and the recent establishment of the China Gold Label Alliance of OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi marks that China’s computing ecosystem and application ecosystem are fully 64-bit ready, and in the next few years All flagship smartphones are guaranteed to be fully 64-bit designed to ensure optimum efficiency and maximum performance.
• In terms of developer accessibility, continue to work on the Arm computing library and the Arm NN framework. Whether it’s improvements in matrix multiplication in GPUs, or in system-level optimizations and cache fine-tuning elsewhere in the design, Arm NN and Arm Compute Libraries enable developers to capture these capabilities.
• In terms of security, the security within the process will be improved. Arm has introduced the asymmetric memory tag extension, which is a combination of synchronous MTE and asynchronous MTE that Arm introduced last year. Arm brings this technology to the Trusted Execution Environment on this generation of devices. Features like face unlock and facial recognition need to be secured against additional malicious attacks, and this technology is key.

Comprehensive computing is Arm’s commitment to future performance, and Arm is continuing to invest more in this solution. According to reports, there are two new projects, Hunter and Chaberton, in the large-core CPU product line, and two new projects, Titan and Krake, in the GPU product line. In addition, Arm is investing in system IP to ensure low-latency memory paths and system-level cache performance, which will drive sustained real-world performance and synthetic benchmark improvements; ongoing efforts to enhance security in design, such as increased support for isolation and Virtualization support, which aligns with Android’s pKVM initiative.