1. Performance Metrics of Processors
There are many performance metrics used to evaluate CPUs, and the test standards may yield different metric values depending on the focus of the performance. Below are two classic testing standards widely used in the embedded industry.
1.1 Dhrystone Standard
Dhrystone is a benchmark program proposed by Reinhold P. Weicker in 1984, primarily aimed at testing the performance of integer and logical operations of processors.
The Dhrystone program was initially released in Ada language, and later Rick Richardson developed a Version 1.1 written in C for Unix, which successfully promoted the widespread use of Dhrystone. The latest version of the Dhrystone program was updated in 1988 as Version 2.1.
The testing method of the Dhrystone standard is straightforward; it measures how many times the Dhrystone program runs in a unit of time, with the metric unit being DMIPS/MHz. MIPS is an abbreviation for Million Instructions Per Second, indicating the number of million machine language instructions processed per second. The ‘D’ in DMIPS stands for Dhrystone, representing the MIPS under the Dhrystone standard testing method.
1.2 CoreMark Standard
CoreMark is a benchmark program proposed by Shay Gla-On of the Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) in 2009, primarily aimed at testing core processor performance. This standard is considered to have more practical value than the outdated Dhrystone standard.
The CoreMark program is written in C and includes the following algorithms: enumeration (finding and sorting), mathematical matrix operations (ordinary matrix calculations), and state machines (to determine if valid numbers are present in the input stream), and it also includes CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check). The latest version of the CoreMark program is Version 1.0.
The testing method for the CoreMark standard is also simple; it measures how many times the CoreMark program runs in a unit of time under a certain configuration parameter combination, with the metric unit being CoreMark/MHz. The higher the CoreMark number, the higher the performance.
2. Performance Comparison of Cortex-M Processors
ARM provides official performance comparison data for the Cortex-M series processors, including Dhrystone and CoreMark standards, as shown in the figure below.
The specific metric values for each processor are as follows:
References
[1]. [ARM Embedded System Development] Chapter One: Dhrystone
[2]. Simple Tool for Testing CPU – Dhrystone
[3]. Introduction to Processor Performance Testing Benchmark Program (CoreMark)
[4]. Cortex-M7 Launches: Embedded, IoT, and Wearables
[5]. CSDN – Markdown Table Style Settings (Cross-row Tables, Background Colors, etc.)
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