Difference Between NVIDIA Tegra 3 and Samsung Exynos 4210

This article compares two recent System-on-Chips (SoC), NVIDIA Tegra3 and Samsung Exynos 4210, deployed in consumer electronics by Apple and Samsung respectively. In a Layperson’s term, a SoC is a computer on a single IC (Integrated Circuit, aka chip). Technically, a SoC is an IC that integrates typical components on a computer (such as microprocessor, memory, input/output) and other systems that cater electronic and radio functionalities. Both NVIDIA Tegra3 and Samsung Exynos 4210 are Multiprocessor System-on-Chip (MPSoC), where the design uses multiprocessor architecture for exploiting the available computing power. While Exynos 4210 came in April 2011; Samsung released its Galaxy S2 with Exynos 4210; NVIDIA released Tegra3 in November 2011, and it is yet to be used in consumer electronics.

Typically, the major components of a SoC are its CPU (Central Processing Unit) and GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). The CPUs in NVIDIA Tegra3 and Exynos 4210 are based on ARM’s (Advanced RICS – Reduced Instruction Set Computer – Machine, developed by ARM Holdings) v7 ISA (Instruction Set Architecture, the one that is used as the starting place of designing a processor).

NVIDIA Tegra3 (Series)

NVIDIA, originally a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) manufacturing company [claimed to have invented GPUs in the late nineties] have recently moved into the mobile computing market, where NVIDIA’s System on Chips (SoC) are deployed in phones, tablets and other handheld devices. Tegra is a SoC series developed by NVIDIA targeting deployment in the mobile market. The first MPSoC in Tegra3 series was released in early November 2011 and yet to be deployed in commercially available devices.

NVIDIA claims that Tegra3 is the first mobile super processor, putting together quad core ARM Cotex-A9 architecture for the first time. Although Tegra3 has four (and therefore quad) ARM Cotex-A9 cores as its main CPU, it has an auxiliary ARM Cotex-A9 core (named the companion core) which is identical in architecture to the others, but is etched on a low power fabric and is clocked at a very low frequency. While the main cores can be clocked at 1.3GHz (when all four cores are active) to 1.4GHz (when only one of the four cores is active), the auxiliary core is clocked at 500MHz. The target of the auxiliary core is to run background processes when the device is in standby mode; therefore, saving power. The GPU used in Tegra3 is NVIDIA’s GeForce, which has 12 cores packed into it. Tegra 3 has both L1 cache and L2 cache, which is similar to that of Tergra 2, and it allows packing of up to 2GB DDR2 RAM.

Samsung Exynos 4210

In April 2011, Samsung in its Galaxy S2 first deployed Exynos 4210. Exynos 4210 was designed and manufactured by Samsung under the codename Orion. It is a successor to Samsung Exynos 3110. Its CPU is a dual core ARM Cotex A9 series clocked at 1.2GHz and its GPU is ARM’s famous Mali-400MP (4 core) design clocked at 275MHz. Exynos 4210 was the first SoC (or rather MPSoC) to deploy ARM’s Mali-400MP. Another attraction for Exynos 4210 is its native support for three displays (triple display outs: 1xWXGA, 2xWSVGA), which is very handy for devices that are targeted by Exynos 4210. The chip was packed with both L1 (instruction and data) and L2 cache hierarchies and had a 1GB DDR3 SDRAM inbuilt.

A comparison between NVIDIA Tegra3 and Exynos 4210 is tabulated below.

Summary

In summary, NVIDIA, in the name of Tegra 3 series, has come out with a MPSoC with high potentials. It obviously outperforms both computing power and graphics performance. The idea of a companion core is very neat, as it can be put to high use for mobile devices as such devices are in standby mode more often than not and they are expected to run background tasks. Some can argue that the expensive low-power fabric used in the companion core can burden the users.  How the mobile computing industry is going to utilize the potential and the market viability of Tegra3 is yet to be seen.