What is the M7 coprocessor?

What is a coprocessor

Coprocessor (coprocessor), a chip used to mitigate the specific processing tasks of a system microprocessor.

Take M7, for example, M7 is a coprocessor for the A7 processor on the iphone 5S, like the right-hand man for the A7 chip. It is designed to measure movement data from accelerometers, gyroscopes and compasses, and if not, the task usually falls on the A7 chip. But the M7 coprocessor is better at this. Fitness apps that track physical activity can now read related data from the M7 coprocessor, thus reducing power consumption without continuous access to the A7 chip.

To put it simply, killing chickens is no longer a sledgehammer, and simple sensor data collection and processing work is given to Low-power M7. Even if the device is in sleep mode, M7 still collects data from three-axis gyroscopes, accelerators, electronic compasses, and other sensors to ensure uninterrupted monitoring of the user's movement, while M7 consumes far less power than the A7 main processor.

The future of the coprocessor

Smartphone processors are moving from a one-sided pursuit of core numbers to a coprocessor that lowers the pressure on the phone's main processor. This evolution will not only ensure that the mobile phone in a special function to achieve better performance, but also to reduce the overall power of the phone, so that the mobile phone in the same application when the use of a smaller amount of electricity, thereby prolonging the mobile phone endurance. The application of single function coprocessor in mobile phone will become a trend of the future development of mobile phone hardware, and it is believed that in the future smartphone market will have more personalized configuration portfolio product launch, bring more rich and practical experience to users.

In the future, I believe there will be more products with coprocessor available, but also more and more with the use of coprocessor applications.