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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday March 23 2017, @07:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the big.Little-just-couldn't-decide dept.

ARM will replace the big.LITTLE cluster design with a new one that allows up to 8 CPU cores per cluster, different types of cores within a cluster, and anywhere from one to many (unlimited?) clusters:

The first stage of DynamIQ is a larger cluster paradigm - which means up to eight cores per cluster. But in a twist, there can be a variable core design within a cluster. Those eight cores could be different cores entirely, from different ARM Cortex-A families in different configurations.

Many questions come up here, such as how the cache hierarchy will allow threads to migrate between cores within a cluster (perhaps similar to how threads migrate between clusters on big.Little today), even when cores have different cache arrangements. ARM did not yet go into that level of detail, however we were told that more information will be provided in the coming months.

Each variable core-configuration cluster will be a part of a new fabric, with uses additional power saving modes and aims to provide much lower latency. The underlying design also allows each core to be controlled independently for voltage and frequency, as well as sleep states. Based on the slide diagrams, various other IP blocks, such as accelerators, should be able to be plugged into this fabric and benefit from that low latency. ARM quoted elements such as safety critical automotive decisions can benefit from this.

A tri-cluster smartphone design using 2 high-end cores, 2 mid-level cores, and 4 low-power cores could be replaced by one that uses all three types of core in the same single cluster. The advantage of that approach remains to be seen.

More about ARM big.LITTLE.


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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 24 2017, @08:02AM (1 child)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday March 24 2017, @08:02AM (#483563) Homepage
    Nit - it's big.LITTLE, not BIG.little. And yes, I know how you're supposed to make use of it in theory, but my point is that it's still not delivering all of the benefits that were promised. "Customising the scheduler" isn't something that you can just do on a lazy friday afternoon, teams of dozens of engineers working for years still haven't got it right. I know, I've worked with them. I have about 3 years of being a linux kernel developer, in an ARM SoC environment, on my CV.
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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 24 2017, @02:12PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday March 24 2017, @02:12PM (#483645) Journal

    I considered snarking on BIG.little... but it's practically a marketing term. To the extent that smartphone buyers have actually heard of it.

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