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My understanding is that ARM Cortex-A7 architecture was released after Cortex-A9 and improves features of previous versions. However, I have only found one manufacturer, NXP, that uses Cortex-A7 architecture in their processors. I am referring to manufacturers that mass produce microprocessors only. Suggestions?
Personally I would stick to the mainstream Silicon vendors.
The most obvious choice would be NXP who have plenty of A7 and A9 devices in their iMX families.
Atmel ATSAMA5Dx family will give something like @90% of the performance of A7 and may also be suitable.
If you don't need an A class processor then try looking at Cortex-M7 options from ST or Atmel
NXP seems to be a major supplier for processors and it is what my research outcome is pointing out as an industrial processor with Cortex-A7. But I don't want to jump into conclusion and am still looking to see other options. For Cortex-A8 and A9 TI also has processors but what my research is showing is that Cortex-A7 is a better architecture.
These days, "best architecture" might be difficult to interpret for several reasons (I'll mention some of them below).
If it does not have to be a Cortex-A7, you have many opitons.
The Cortex-A7 architecture is a few years old now, so there are better architectures (both 32-bit and 64-bit) available.
The current 'top' architecture is the 64-bit Cortex-A72.
I believe that the current 32-bit 'top' architecture is he Cortex-A17.
Texas Instruments certainly makes high quality ARM processors and so do Marvell Semiconductor.
I am positive that you have some criteria for the processor's capabilities.
I'm thinking something like
If you need single tasks to execute at highest possible speeds, it's wise to choose an implementation with fewer cores clocked at higher speeds, compared to an implementation with many cores clocked at lower speeds.
Example: A quad-core Cortex-A53 running at 2GHz might outperform an octa-core Cortex-A53 running at 1.5GHz.
For instance: Marvell Semiconductor ARMADA 7020 .. 8040 might be a very good idea if you need high speed communication.
Personal opinion: If you need to connect a hard disk RAID, I would recommend ARMADA + Marvell 88SE9230 + Western Digital drives (due to my experience with many different drive vendors).
If you need to do video or Digital Signal Processing, I'd recommend having a look at Texas Instruments' Cortex-A8 .. Cortex-A15 product range.
If you need real-time video processing (of for instance incoming camera images), then you might want to have a look at Amlogic's Quad-Core Cortex-A53 based S905.
Note: Even a small 100 MHz Cortex-M3 can be fast enough for analyzing images in real-time and taking actions based upon the images, if the firmware is written well.