OMAP3...

OMAP3...

Posted Jan 10, 2009 13:13 UTC (Sat) by HalfMoon (guest, #3211)
In reply to: ARM SoC launched with Linux support (Linux Devices) by drag
Parent article: ARM SoC launched with Linux support (Linux Devices)

OMAP is probably best known for being energy-efficient, which XScale never did that well. The process technologies have really affected the hardware designs, which gets to be really significant with smaller geometries where leakage currents *really* hurt. OMAP has quite a few power domains on the chip, which can be individually switched off; and that's on top of selecting power-efficient transistors. That's critical if you're going to eke out a week's usage off teeny tiny batteries... and part of why it's not clocked as fast as the ARM core would allow.

Also, OMAP3 has four basic options. OMAP 3503 (the one in the entry level Gumstix Overo) has no video accelerators. The higher end chips can give you one or both of: the OpenGL engine; or a rather powerful C64x+ fixed point DSP (VLIW, four concurrent ALUs, many MMACs/sec). The Beagle board has one of the higher end chips (OMAP 3530), with all the available graphical goodies. (But not the "secure" version used in most cell phones.) If you need number crunching, use the DSP not the ARM.

You can compare the OMAP 3525 (ARM plus DSP, no OpenGL hardware) to the DaVinci 6446, which is marketed as a video processor; except the OMAP has more peripherals, a much faster ARM (Cortex-A8 vs arm926), and better power management.

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