A 1.6 GHz quad-core application processor manufactured in 32 nm high-k metal gate process for smart mobile devices

This article introduces a 32 nm application processor designed for the latest high-performance smart handheld devices and discusses its design targets and options. To meet unprecedented levels of performance and data throughput demands, this processor employs a 200 MHz-1.6 GHz quad-core CPU, a quad-core GPU, a 2-port interleaving DRAM controller, dedicated video/audio/image processors, a camera/ display controller, and a hierarchical bus. This processor does it in a given power budget and battery life, and also in a given thermal budget by combining 32 nm high-k metal gate process technology with system-level power management techniques and dynamic thermal management techniques.