Can APXM-6200 RISC-V CPU challenge ARM?
Imagination Technologies is hoping to take some market share away from ARM with its new APXM-6200 RISC-V CPU, which is designed to power all the smart devices we love to hate. The core of the APXM-6200 is designed in a similar way to the ARM Cortex-A series, but does not rely on an ARM license. They currently have up to 4 cores, which is enough to power a port on a smart TV or toaster, but Imagination intends to expand this to 12 cores in the future. Although the APXM-6200 lacks L3 cache, it has 128 KB L1 and 1MB Pf L2 per core. This wouldn’t be a good fit for top-tier Cortex-A chips, but it might also make them cheaper, which could be very attractive for companies looking to mass-produce smart appliances.
We take this with a grain of salt as these are internal benchmarks, but The Register has learned that in SpecINT2k6, the APXM-6200 performed 65% better than the Cortex-A53 and 14% better than the new Cortex-A510. Actual performance may vary, but if they can come close in real-world tasks, Imagination could also leverage the fact that they design and build onboard GPUs when trying to sell chips to manufacturers.
As you might expect, the usefulness of the APXM-6200 in AI applications is also discussed and is covered throughout the article.