The Cortex-A7 processor builds on the energy-efficient 8-stage in-order pipeline of the Cortex-A5 processor, adding up to 1 MB Level 2 cache, 40 bit physical addressing to support Large Physical Address Extensions (LPAE), 64-bit load-store and 128-bit AMBA ACE bus. The Cortex-A7 processor provides up to 20% more single thread performance than the Cortex-A5.

The Cortex-A7 implements the ARMv7-A architecture with one to four processors in a multiprocessor configuration with an optional integrated Generic Interrupt Controller (GIC) that is compliant with the version 2.0 of the ARM Generic Interrupt Controller (GIC) Architecture Specification.
 

In a 28nm process, the Cortex-A7 can run at 1.2-1.6GHz, has an area of 0.45mm2 (with Floating-Point Unit, Neon and a 32KB L1 cache) and requires less than 100mW of total power in typical conditions.