Analysis: BDTI's ARM1176 benchmark scores

BDTI has released independent benchmark results for the ARM1176 licensable processor core on the BDTI DSP Kernel Benchmarks™, which measure overall signal-processing performance, and the BDTI Video Decoder Benchmark™, which measures performance on video decoding and similar workloads.

Based on its results on the BDTI DSP Kernel Benchmarks™, the ARM1176 achieves a BDTImark2000™ score of 1200 at a clock rate of 335 MHz (All processor core performance data in this article assumes use of the TSMC CL013G process with the ARM Artisan SAGE-X library, and worst-case temperature, process, and voltage variations.)

While the ARM1176 is significantly slower on signal processing tasks than high-performance DSP processor cores (the CEVA-X1620 at 330 MHz is roughly twice as fast with a BDTImark2000™ score of 2660), the DSP instruction set extensions in the ARM1176 give it considerable signal-processing horsepower compared to other low-cost general-purpose processors. For example, the ARM1176 is approximately twice as fast as its predecessor, the ARM9E, on the BDTI DSP Kernel Benchmarks™. In some applications the ARM1176 may also compete with mid-range DSP cores. As a point of comparison, a Texas Instruments C55x DSP chip operating at 300 MHz delivers a BDTImark2000™ score of 1460, about 20% higher than that of the ARM1176 at 335 MHz.

On the BDTI Video Decoder Benchmark™, the ARM1176 operating at 320 MHz achieved QVGA video decoding at 30 frames per second using 78% of the available processor cycles. BDTI previously published BDTI Video Encoder and Decoder Benchmark™ results for the NXP (formerly Philips) PNX4103, a multimedia processor designed for video applications.

On the BDTI Video Decoder Benchmark™ at QVGA resolution and 30 frames per second, the PNX4103 operating at 350 MHz utilizes only 19% of available cycles. This much lower loading relative to the ARM1176 is to be expected, as the PNX4103 uses a VLIW DSP core, compared to the general-purpose CPU architecture of the ARM1176.

Overall, these benchmark results show that the ARM1176 delivers impressive signal processing speed for a general-purpose processor. In some applications, this may lead SoC designers to consider using the ARM1176 to replace a DSP processor paired with a general-purpose processor. For more information, including additional scores, see http://www.bdti.com/bdtimark/benchmarks.htm.