There seems to be great confusion in some communities with regards to how products are marketed and I am seeking some clarification.
Earlier on this year, at an exhibition, Rockchip were showing off their new RK3288 CPU and has an advertising board that seemed to originally show it as an Cortex-A17, then hurriedly modified in a very basic way to show Cortex-A12.
Since then, all of the advertisements for the RK3288 have been as an Cortex-A17 but many are questioning it because there is belief that an Cortex-A17 must come with big.LITTLE, whereas the RK3288 does not support it.
None of the research that I have carried out so far is conclusive and I wondered if anybody could confirm that an Cortex-A17 is, or is not required to support big.LITTLE.
Thanks all.
I'm not familiar with the Rockchip part you mentioned, so can't help you there. However, on the Cortex-A17 it is quite possible to use it on its own or in a big.LITTLE system. Ditto for the Cortex-A15 or Cortex-A7.
Thanks for the reply and I think that it answers my question.
Many people seem to have the belief that if A17 is used in the marketing that it means that big.LITTLE is a feature.
You might want to take a look at this recent announcement:
ARM Cortex-A17 / Cortex-A12 processor update