packs five ARM Cortex-A9 cores under its silver heatspreader

Nov 3, 2011 23:11 GMT  ·  By

We are getting nearer to the release of Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El system-on-a-chip (SoC) device and recently a picture of this chip has popped up online to showcase it in all of its glory.

The SoC in the picture found above the article was taken from an FCC filling of Asus' Transformer Prime, the first tablet to make use of this chip, and was posted online by Wireless Goodness.

The packaging for the SoC looks fairly plain, but underneath its silver heatspreader there are four Cortex A9 cores based on an ARM architecture paired together with a fifth low-power companion core.

Nvidia chose this arrangement in order to increase the power efficiency of its design, as the companion core handles many of the tasks the device runs when in idle mode.

For more details about Nvidia's Kal-El architecture you can check out our previous article that takes an in-depth look at this chip.