The Cortex-A53 processor has an 8-stage, symmetric dual-issue in-order pipeline implementing the 64-bit Armv8-A architecture with one to four cores with automatic data cache coherency, the shared Level 2 cache can be up to 2MB, 128 bit ACE or CHI coherent system bus interface.

The A53 pipeline supports symmetric dual-issue of most instructions, compared to the A7 which can only handle integer instructions in the second slot.