Arm Announces TCS 2023: Complete IP Package With 5th Generation Immortalis-G720 GPU And Cortex-X4 CPU

At Computex 2023, Arm has announced the TCS 2023 solutions - which is the latest iteration in their complete IP solution offering that includes everything from the CPU, GPU and everything in between and allows Arm clients to stay completely in-house when it comes to the IP blocks for their chip.

The new 5th generation GPU architecture is ARM's most powerful GPU yet with the added benefit of DVS or Deferred Vertex Shading. The flagship Immortalis G720 has 15% better performance with 40% less memory bandwidth usage. Along with the G720, ARM has also launched the lower end Mali-G620. Through these new Mali GPUs, Arm has improved its portfolio of premium graphics features and expanded it to a wider market of consumer devices. Speaking of which, Mediatek was also present at the launch and showed off their new SoC based on the Cortex X4 and Immortalis G720 featuring hardware-based raytracing.

Cortex X4, which has achieved the first tape out using TSMC's N3E process, similarly is the fastest cluster from Arm to date and featured 15% more performance while getting a 40% improvement in power efficiency. Cortex-A720 is industry leading CPU IP that boosts sustained performance as the workhorse of the cluster. Meanwhile, Cortex-A520 is Arm’s most performant high-efficiency CPU core ever. Use cases like AAA gaming, all-day productivity and background tasks all benefit from the 20 percent power efficiency improvements of these new CPU designs over previous generations.

“Our latest collaboration with Arm is an excellent showcase of how we can enable our customers to reach new levels of performance and efficiency with TSMC’s most advanced process technology and the powerful Armv9 architecture. We will continue to work closely with our Open Innovation Platform® (OIP) ecosystem partners like Arm to push the envelope on CPU innovations to accelerate AI, 5G, and HPC technology advances.” - Dan Kochpatcharin, Head of the Design Infrastructure Management Division, TSMC

Interestingly, the company also included the following quote from Intel which seems to indicate that Intel also expects the Cortex X4 to be built on the Intel 18A. So either the tapeout is just a test or we are going to see Arm moving from Intel 18A to TSMC N3E or maybe two flavors built on each process.

“The combination of leading-edge Intel 18A technology with Arm’s newest and most powerful CPU core, the Cortex-X4, will create opportunities for companies looking to design the next generation of innovative mobile SoCs. Arm is a critical partner as we work to build a comprehensive foundry ecosystem for our customers around the world.” - Stuart Pann, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Intel Foundry Services (IFS)

Finally, we have the new Arm's DynamIQ shared unit or the DSU-120 which offers support for up to 14 CPU cores in the same cluster is similarly designed for multi threaded applications in use cases ranging from wearable to smartphones to laptops.