Functional Description
ARM DDI 0500D
Copyright © 2013-2014 ARM. All rights reserved.
2-2
ID021414
Non-Confidential
2.1
About the Cortex-A53 processor functions
Figure 2-1
shows a top-level functional diagram of the Cortex-A53 processor.
Figure 2-1 Cortex-A53 processor block diagram
The following sections describe the main Cortex-A53 processor components and their
functions:
•
Instruction Fetch Unit
.
•
Data Processing Unit
on page 2-3
.
•
Advanced SIMD and Floating-point Extension
on page 2-3
.
•
Cryptography Extension
on page 2-4
.
•
Translation Lookaside Buffer
on page 2-4
.
•
Data side memory system
on page 2-4
.
•
L2 memory system
on page 2-5
.
•
Cache protection
on page 2-6
.
•
Debug and trace
on page 2-6
.
2.1.1
Instruction Fetch Unit
The
Instruction Fetch Unit
(IFU) contains the instruction cache controller and its associated
linefill buffer. The Cortex-A53 MPCore instruction cache is 2-way set associative and uses
Virtually Indexed Physically Tagged
(VIPT) cache lines holding up to 16 A32 instructions, 16
32-bit T32 instructions, 16 A64 instructions, or up to 32 16-bit T32 instructions.
The IFU cannot hold A64, A32, and T32 instructions in the same cache line. For example, if the
IFU fetches both A32 and T32 instructions from the same 64 byte region of memory, that region
occupies two cache lines, one for the A32 instructions and one for the T32 instructions.
The instruction cache has the following features:
•
Pseudo-random cache replacement policy.
L1
ICache
L1
DCache
Debug
and trace
Core 0
L2 cache
SCU
ACE/AMBA 5 CHI
master bus interface
ACP slave
Level 2 memory system
Core 0 governor
L1
ICache
L1
DCache
Debug
and trace
Core 1
FPU and NEON
extension
Crypto
extension
L1
ICache
L1
DCache
Debug
and trace
Core 2
L1
ICache
L1
DCache
Debug
and trace
Core 3
Core 1 governor
Core 2 governor
Core 3 governor
Arch
timer
GIC CPU
interface
Clock and
reset
CTI
Retention
control
Debug over
power down
Arch
timer
GIC CPU
interface
Clock and
reset
CTI
Retention
control
Debug over
power down
Arch
timer
GIC CPU
interface
Clock and
reset
CTI
Retention
control
Debug over
power down
Arch
timer
GIC CPU
interface
Clock and
reset
CTI
Retention
control
Debug over
power down
Governor
APB decoder
APB ROM
APB multiplexer
CTM
Cortex-A53 processor
FPU and NEON
extension
Crypto
extension
FPU and NEON
extension
Crypto
extension
FPU and NEON
extension
Crypto
extension