I just finished up an article regarding what are supposed to be the official specifications of the MT6595 SoC. In that article we briefly mentioned big.LITTLE architecture.
Many of you are well aware of what big.LITTLE architecture is. But some of you may be wondering, so I decided to take a few minutes to briefly explain the concept.
The ARM Cortex A-17 planned to be used in the MTK6595 will employ what’s called big.LITTLE architecture. In this setup, the Cortex-A17 will work with Cortex-A7. Cortex-A7 is what currently powers MT6592 and MT6582. When CPU workload is minimal, four Cortex A-7 cores will handle load. When CPU load reaches a certain point, which will vary depending on how the governor is set, the Cortex-A17 will kick-in and takeover until load decreases to the threshold point.
In this way, users receive and excellent balance between power and efficiency. Using the powerhorse Cortex-A17 when workload demands it, and falling back to the more efficient, less power hungry Cortex-A7 when its able.
The Cortex-A15 uses a similar setup in some of the high-end smartphones made by Samsung. In this big.LITTLE setup, the Cortex-A15 handles the heavier loads, while Cortex-A7 handles the lighter stuff.
This is an excellent decision by MediaTek to employ big.LITTLE architecture. We had originally hoped for it with MT6592, but seeing that Cortex-A15 ended up being such a beast regarding energy consumption, perhaps it was better in the long run to stick with just Cortex-A7 in the MTK6592 MTK6582 SoC.
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