The 66AK2E0x is a high performance device based on TI’s KeyStone II Multicore SoC Architecture, incorporating the most performance-optimized Cortex-A15 processor single-core or quad-core CorePac and C66x DSP core, that can run at a core speed of up to 1.4 GHz. TI’s 66AK2E0x device enables a high performance, power-efficient and easy to use platform for developers of a broad range of applications such as enterprise grade networking end equipment, data center networking, avionics and defense, medical imaging, test and automation.
TI’s KeyStone II Architecture provides a programmable platform integrating various subsystems (for example, ARM CorePac (Cortex-A15 Processor Quad Core CorePac), C66x CorePac, network processing, and uses a queue-based communication system that allows the device resources to operate efficiently and seamlessly. This unique device architecture also includes a TeraNet switch that enables the wide mix of system elements, from programmable cores to high-speed IO, to each operate at maximum efficiency with no blocking or stalling.
TI’s C66x core launches a new era of DSP technology by combining fixed-point and floating point computational capability in the processor without sacrificing speed, size, or power consumption. The raw computational performance is an industry-leading 38.4 GMACS/core and 19.2 Gflops/core (@ 1.2 GHz operating frequency). It can execute 8 single precision floating point MAC operations per cycle and can perform double- and mixed-precision operations and is IEEE754 compliant. For fixed-point use, the C66x core has 4× the multiply accumulate (MAC) capability of C64×+ cores. The C66x CorePac incorporates 90 new instructions targeted for floating point and vector math oriented processing. These enhancements yield sizeable performance improvements in popular DSP kernels used in signal processing, mathematical, and image acquisition functions. The C66x core is backwards code compatible with TI'’s previous generation C6000 fixed and floating point DSP cores, ensuring software portability and shortened software development cycles for applications migrating to faster hardware.
The 66AK2E0x KeyStone II device integrates a large amount of on-chip memory. The Cortex-A15 processor cores each have 32KB of L1Data and 32KB of L1 Instruction cache. The up to four Cortex A15 cores in the ARM CorePac share a 4MB L2 Cache. In the DSP CorePac, in addition to 32KB of L1 program and 32KB of L1 data cache, there is 512KB of dedicated memory per core that can be configured as cache or as memory mapped RAM. The device also integrates 2MB of Multicore Shared Memory (MSMC) that can be used as a shared L3 SRAM. All L2 and MSMC memories incorporate error detection and error correction. For fast access to external memory, this device includes a 64-bit DDR-3 (72-bit with ECC support) external memory interface (EMIF) running at 1600 MTPS.
The device enables developers to use a variety of development and debugging tools that include GNU GCC, GDB, Open source Linux, Eclipse based debugging environment enabling kernel and user space debugging using a variety of Eclipse plug-ins including TI's industry leading IDE Code Composer Studio.
