NVIDIA licenses ARM 11 MPCore processor

NVIDIA has licensed the ARM 11 MPCore processor for usage in next-generation mobile consumer products. The processor includes features such as ARM SIMD media extensions, Intelligent Energy Manager (IEM) for efficient energy management and Jazelle for Java acceleration.

The ARM 11 MPCore chip is made on a 130nm process from IBM. It runs at 550MHz while using only 2.7mm² of silicon (without cache). Power consumption of the processor is rated at as little as 0.30mW/MHz.

“Rich media applications are an essential part of next-generation consumer products,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. “By embedding ARM technology in our next-generation products, we can leverage the strength of ARM technology as the application processor and deliver exciting new devices and media rich applications to consumers.”

The companies said the processor delivers a memory performance of more than 1.3GB/s and scalability to over 2,600 Dhrystone 2.1 Mips of aggregate performance in a cache-coherent four-way configuration.

The ARM 11 MPCore can be used used in uni-processor, symmetric or asymmetric multiprocessor configurations. These kind of multi-core processors are gaining pace in the embedded and desktop processor world because they combine scalable high performance and lower power, according to Tom R. Halfhill from In-Stat's Microprocessor Report.