Cortex-A9 Processor

The Cortex-A9 processor is proven in a wide range of devices and is one of ARM's most widely deployed and mature applications processors. Cortex-A9 processor offers an overall performance enhancement over 25% higher than Cortex-A8 per core, plus the ability to implement multi-core designs that further scale the performance increase.

The Cortex-A9 implements the widely supported ARMv7-A architecture with an efficient microarchitecture: 

• High-efficiency, dual-issue superscalar, out-of-order, dynamic length pipeline (8 – 11 stages)
• Highly configurable L1 caches, and optional NEON and Floating-point extensions
• Available as a Single processor configuration, or a scalable multi-core configuration with up to 4 coherent cores

For the most high-end 32-bit devices, Cortex-A17 delivers more performance and efficiency in a similar footprint than it’s predecessor, the Cortex-A9. They are based of a similar pipeline, with Cortex-A17 extending the capabilities in single thread performance and adding big.LITTLE support and virtualization that were not in the original Cortex-A9 offering. 

Key Benefits

• Scalable performance and power efficiency for a broad range of 32-bit consumer, networking, enterprise and mobile applications
• Support the wide ARMv7-A 32-bit software eco-system
• Mature and silicon proven in multiple process technologies

Applications

The Cortex-A9 processor is suitable for low-power, cost-sensitive 32-bit devices which require competitive power efficiency. Beyond being one of ARM’s most successful mobile phone processors, it is now successfully implemented for a range of other products.

32-bit embedded
compute devices

Low-cost consumer
devices

Home networking
appliances