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Freescale intros Vybrid controller line, weds ARM A5 and M4 cores for an asymmetrical bang
Making good on its word, Freescale's line of Vybrid controllers is now ready for prime time multiprocessing. That asymmetrical setup, announced last October, takes the high / low approach we've seen gradually crop up in computing, pairing an ARM Cortex A5 and Cortex M4 in uneven, albeit harmonious CPU matrimony. The company's not targeting this new platform at consumers, though, as that market's already being served by the likes of NVIDIA's Tegra 3. No, this controller arrangement's headed directly for the industrial sector, where medical, point-of-sale and smart energy equipment can benefit from the cores' decreased power demands and ability for real-time control. Eager to dig deeper into this silicon platform? Then feel free to parse through the rest of the company's jargon-y release after the break.
Freescale joins ARM A5 and M4 cores at the hip for performance and power savings
You may have noticed a trend recently -- pairing slightly less powerful cores that sip power, with more robust ones that can chug through demanding applications. NVIDIA's Tegra 3 will be packing an underclocked fifth core, while ARM's big.LITTLE initiative matches a highly efficient 28nm A7 with the beefy A15. Now Freescale is planning to use the same trick, but you won't find its asymmetrical CPUs in your next tablet or smartphone. Its platform, which marries a Cortex M4 to a Cortex A5, isn't meant to compete with the latest Snapdragon. These chips will find homes in factories and in-dash infotainment systems which have increasingly sophisticated UIs, but don't need to push thousands of polygons. Software development tools will land before this quarter is out and the first batch of silicon will be announced in Q1 of 2012. Looks like the era of "dual-core" meaning two identical cores has officially come to an end.
