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Carmel µarch
General Info
Arch Type	CPU
Designer	Nvidia
Manufacturer	TSMC
Introduction	January 7, 2018
Process	12 nm
Core Configs	8
Pipeline
Type	Superscalar
Instructions
ISA	ARMv8
Cache
L2 Cache	2 MiB/cluster
L3 Cache	4 MiB/complex
Succession
Denver 2

Carmel is a the successor to Denver 2, an ARM microarchitecture for Nvidia's Tegra series of SoCs.

Process Technology

Carmel is integrated into chips fabricated on TSMC 12 nm process (12FFN)

Architecture

Nvidia disclosed very few details regarding Carmel. Carmel is a 10-wide superscalar with each core supporting dual execution mode.

Key changes from Denver 2

• 12 nm (12FFN)
• ARMv8.2
  • ARM RAS standard support
• Wider dispatch (10, up from 7)

Memory Hierarchy

• Cache
  • Parity & ECC
  • L1
  • L2
    • 2 MiB
      • Shared per duplex
  • L3
    • 4 MiB
      • Shared by entire cluster
      • Exclusive

Block Diagram

CPU Complex

Overview

Carmel is a CPU microarchitecture designed by Nvidia for their SoCs. The design consists of an 8-core cluster made of 4 core duplexes. The entire complex has cache coherency as well as an I/O coherent memory subsystem which is designed for communication with the various other accelerators on their SoCs such as the vision accelerator, deep learning accelerator, multimedia engine, and the GPU.

The cores consume 500-1,500 mW per core.

Performance claims

SPECint 2000 Rate	SPECint 2006
2700	21

Die

CPU Complex

• 8 cores
  • 4 duplexes
  • shared L3
• ~62.25 mm² die size area

CPU Duplex

• 2 cores
• ~11.4 mm² die size area

Core

• ~5.75 mm² die size area

Bibliography

• IEEE Hot Chips 30 Symposium (HCS) 2018.