Specifications

The Cortex-A78AE processor combines high performance and power efficiency for safe compute in thermally-constrained designs.

Cortex-A78AE is designed for devices that undertake complex and demanding safety-critical tasks with differing workloads. Cortex-A78AE is well suited to the needs of automated driving and autonomous industrial systems.

Cortex-A78AE supports features to achieve ASIL D/SIL 3 in lock mode. Cortex-A78AE also aids achievement of ASIL B/SIL 2 in hybrid mode, allowing flexibility through its Split-Lock feature operating in second-generation Dual Core Lock-Step (DCLS). Hybrid mode enables the highest safety levels for mission-critical deployments or highest performance for lower safety applications.

Architecture Armv8.2-A (AArch32 at ELO only)  
Extensions
  • Armv8.1 extensions
  • Armv8.2 extensions
  • Armv8.3 (LDAPR instructions only)
  • RAS extensions
  • Armv8.4 Dot Product
  • Cryptography extensions
  • RAS extensions
  
Microarchitecture
 Pipeline Out of order
  Superscalar
 Yes
  Neon / Floating Point Unit Included with INT8 Dot Product and IEEE FP16
  Cryptography Unit
 Optional
  Max number of CPUs in cluster
 4
  Physical Addressing (PA) 48-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
  ECC Support Yes
  LPAE Yes
  Bus interfaces            AMBA ACE or CHI
  ACP Optional
  Peripheral Port Optional
  Functional Safety Support ASIL D Systematic1 and ASIL D Diagnostic2
  Security TrustZone
  Interrupts

External GICv4
  Generic timer Armv8-A
  Non-intrusive debug (trace) Included
1Suitable for up to ASIL D systematic development
2Contributes towards up to ASIL D hardware diagnostic metrics
Cortex-A78AE block diagram

Key benefits

Split-Lock capability with hybrid mode provides end-to-end protection capability and enhanced flexibility to operate in three modes:

  • Split mode for performance
  • Lock mode for safety
  • Hybrid mode to offer a balance of safe compute performance

DCLS provides fault-tolerant operation in lock mode.

Key features compared to Cortex-A76AE

Cortex-A78AE provides 30% improved performance for each core at improved power efficiency, compared to Cortex-A76AE.

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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