Specifications

The Arm Cortex-A78 CPU delivers premium performance with the industry-leading power efficiency for multiple form factors.

The fourth-generation premium core built on DynamIQ technology. Paired with Cortex-A55 CPUs in a scalable DynamIQ big.LITTLE configuration, Cortex-A78 extends the performance and efficiency of premium smartphones to multiple form factors. Consumers demand premium level performance from devices, Cortex-A78 provides up to a 20% sustained performance increase, along with 50% energy savings when compared to earlier generation devices. Together with a solution-focused approach to chip design, including the GPU and NPU, Cortex-A78 provides greater efficiency for multi-day battery life across mobile, laptop, and foldable devices.

Arm Cortex-A78 Block Diagram

Arm Cortex-A78 CPU based on DynamIQ technology

Architecture Armv8-A (Harvard)  
Extensions
  • Armv8.1 extensions
  • Armv8.2 extensions
  • Cryptography extensions
  • RAS extensions
 Armv8.3 (LDAPR instructions only)
  
ISA support
  • A64
  • A32 and T32 (at EL0 only) 
  
Microarchitecture
 Pipeline Out of order
  Superscalar
 Yes
  Neon / Floating Point Unit Included
  Cryptography Unit
 Optional
  Max number of CPUs in cluster
 4
  Physical Addressing (PA) 40-bit
Memory system and external interfaces
 L1 I-Cache / D-Cache 32KB to 64KB
  L2 Cache 256KB to 512KB
  L3 Cache Optional, 512KB to 4MB
Up to 8MB (with Cortex-X1)
  ECC Support Yes
  LPAE Yes
  Bus interfaces            AMBA ACE or CHI
  ACP Optional
  Peripheral Port Optional
  Functional Safety Support ASIL D systematic
  Security TrustZone
  Interrupts GIC interface, GICv4
  Generic timer Armv8-A
  PMU PMUv3
  Debug Armv8-A (plus Armv8.2-A extensions)
  CoreSight CoreSightv3
  Embedded Trace Macrocell ETMv4.2 (instruction trace)

Key features compared to Cortex-A77

Some of the key areas where Cortex-A78 improves on performance and energy efficiency of Cortex-A77. 

  • Twenty percent sustained performance improvements (assuming a 1W power budget)
  • Fifty percent energy savings at same performance, enabling multi-day battery life using latest process nodes
  • Extended scalability with extra support from the DynamIQ Shared Unit for big.LITTLE

Cortex-A comparison table for Armv7-A and Armv8-A

Download the following PDF datasheet to compare the specifications of Cortex-A Armv7-A and Armv8-A processors.

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