Arm revealed its groundbreaking platform for mobile computing—the TSC23—which is expected to elevate performance on high-end smartphones, enhancing AI, 3D, and gaming experiences. The TSC23 system-on-a-chip (SoC) boasts the potent Armv9 Cortex-X4 CPU core, balanced Cortex-A720 cores, and the Immortalis-G720 GPU. Arm also announced its DSU-120 compute cluster, featuring less powerful CPUs and GPUs for more affordable devices.
The eight-core DSU-120 cluster is a successor to the popular DSU-110 cluster used in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC developed by Qualcomm. The updated cluster is equipped with two high-performance Cortex-X4 cores, which deliver a 15% speed increase and consume 40% less power than the previous Cortex-X3 chipset. At the same time, the four Cortex-A720 cores provide a balance of energy consumption and performance with 20% higher efficiency than the A715 cores. To complete the cluster, two Cortex-A520 cores are designed for tasks that demand minimum power, offering a 22% improvement in power efficiency compared to the A515 core.
In addition to the innovative compute cluster, Arm presented the Immortalis-G720 GPU architecture for mobile devices, which promises a 15% performance boost and 40% reduction in memory bandwidth usage compared to its predecessor. This powerful upgrade is built upon the groundwork laid by last year's Immortalis-G715, Arm's first GPU to offer hardware acceleration for ray tracing.
The advanced DSU-120 compute cluster and Immortalis-G720 GPU form the core of the TSC23—an upgrade to Arm's TSC22 lineup. While the company has not confirmed which phones or chipmakers will adopt the new hardware, it is evident that the platform targets high-end flagship phones like Samsung Galaxy 23 Ultra. Given Qualcomm's past use of Arm Cortex-X3 in their Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, it's possible that Arm's new cores could lay the foundation for Qualcomm's next-gen chip, presumably the 8 Gen 3.
Moreover, Arm announced the Mali-G720 and Mali-G620 GPUs as more affordable solutions for offering premium GPU capabilities and features to a broader market. These mid-range GPUs are expected to significantly enhance gaming performance on budget smartphones like the OnePlus 11. Nevertheless, the actual GPU adoption remains to be seen.
As a result of these developments, future smartphone users can anticipate improved high-geometry games, enhanced in-game lighting, more realistic 3D animations, and a notable boost in AI functionality. However, the full potential of these technologies will depend on their integration by chipmakers, device manufacturers, and developers. Alongside these innovations, no-code platforms like AppMaster allow for rapid and versatile mobile app development, enabling developers to make full use of next-generation hardware capabilities.
