What is a CPU?
Today's digital devices and the digital lifestyle are rapidly changing. The demand for power-intensive applications, and smaller and smaller form factors, require innovative hardware that can manage and process the heavy-duty tasks. Not so long ago, if you wanted to watch a streaming video while sending e-mails, you needed a desktop PC that was plugged into a wall, with a high-performance CPU and a lot of memory. Now you expect to have the same multimedia experiences—the same ability to multitask—in the palm of your hand, inside your car, or from the comfort of your couch. And with increasingly demanding applications come increasing demands on the infrastructure that drives the network. In turn we need more storage capacity, faster access to files, better battery life, etc. All of these requirements illustrate the need for innovative, scalable, processing technologies.
A CPU, or central processing unit, is effectively the brains of the device it occupies. The most familiar CPUs are found inside desktop and laptop PCs, yet millions of CPUs are used to drive embedded systems. Hard drives, network switches, and mobile phones are all examples of embedded systems that utilize a CPU.
The CPU's role is to manage the entire functionality of the device it occupies. Even in chips specifically designed for a particular function, the CPU is a vital component. For example, in a mobile phone chip, one component may be specifically tailored to display graphics, but it is up to the CPU to control and coordinate those same graphics.
A CPU is typically the fastest running and most advanced component in any chip. Due to its software flexibility, it can be called upon to perform any task. Oftentimes these include tasks that were not considered—or did not exist—when the product was designed. Tasks can be run on the CPU rather than on costly specialized hardware. The more functions a CPU performs, however, the more CPU processing power is required.
The Role of Embedded CPUs
Embedded CPUs are much smaller and consume significantly less power than CPUs used in PCs. For example, if you want to be able to use multiple applications on your mobile phone at the same time without a hiccup, you need your CPU to be high performance. It also has to fit the small form factor of a phone, without getting too hot, and without consuming too much power too quickly. These demands are unique to embedded CPUs and require a particular architecture designed for these demands. The leading architecture in the embedded world, for over 80% of all 32-bit embedded CPUs, is the ARM architecture.
Marvell Shiva CPU Technology
Marvell's Shiva CPUs are compatible with the ARM architecture. This means that they understand any software or tool that is designed for the ARM architecture, and play a significant role within the ARM ecosystem. The architecture defines how the CPU interacts with the outside world. But more importantly is the internal design—the microarchitecture—of the CPU. Marvell utilizes the ARM architecture as a foundation for building CPU cores, but feature a unique, high-performance, low-power Marvell microarchitecture. This microarchitecture is tailor-fit for today's embedded applications that demand high-performance and low-power consumption.
